More than 2 billion and a thousand professionals to reinforce municipal social services

BarcelonaOne of the Government's pending tasks regarding social services was to update the budget allocated to municipalities and county councils for the care of people in situations of social vulnerability, dependency, and poverty, which had not been renewed since 2025. With these funds, the local level finances the care for children and adolescents and people experiencing homelessness, as well as the salaries of workers who provide home care, to name a few examples. This Wednesday, the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, signed a new agreement for the 2027-2030 period that plans to allocate more than 2 billion euros and incorporate more than 1,000 new professionals into local social services over the next four years.

The head of the Catalan executive presided over the signing ceremony of this new program contract, in which the Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Raúl Moreno; the president of the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM), Meritxell Budó; and the president of the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia (FMC), David Bote, also participated. The overall figure is divided into 2.181 billion euros directly for the framework agreement and 136.3 million euros for adapted transport and youth policy actions. At the signing ceremony of the agreement, the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, celebrated the agreement with the local level "in a moment of noise and confrontation in the world" and described the collaboration with the councils as "essential," because they are the ones that have "direct knowledge of the territory".

One of the novelties is the way in which municipalities and county councils will finance social services. Until now, the system worked through a series of individual supporting files that required a "cumbersome review process throughout the year," according to sources from Social Rights. With the new model, almost all funds will be processed as a direct transfer and only a small percentage will remain as a traditional subsidy. The municipalities will communicate the intervention carried out in each case and the department will make the payment. "This reduces bureaucratic work and allows for a faster, more efficient, and modern relationship between administrations," the same sources argue. In this sense, Bote highlighted "the robustness" of the agreement and with the change in the payment system, "stability is given to services that are inherently very vulnerable".

The new plan also includes an improvement in the salary of the people who work in the Home Care Service (SAD), a demand of the sector. The Government plans to increase the hourly price of the service from the current 24 euros to 27 euros in 2027 and, from then on, it will increase by one euro each year until it reaches 30 euros per hour in 2030. Social Services point out that this represents "a very important effort", since every extra euro paid for this service means 7 million euros more for the Government.

More hiring

The Government has broken down the thousand new hires that it expects municipalities to make with this new plan. On one hand, primary care will be reinforced with 276 additional professionals for the Basic Social Services Teams (EBAS) for management, coordination, and direct care tasks. In the area of child and adolescent care (EAIA), 472 new personnel will be added—including coordination and administration figures—to reduce the institutionalization of minors. Regarding the fight against homelessness, the deployment will include 115 new profiles, distributed between 93 street educators (74 in 2027 and 19 in 2028) and 22 specialized referents in the territory. In addition, 15 new technicians will be added to strengthen youth policies in rural environments.

Last week, the Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Raúl Moreno, already announced that the Catalan executive will allocate double what is currently invested so thatmunicipalities can tackle homelessness, and that it will go from 62.2 million euros for the 2022-2025 period to a total of 133 million euros until 2030. Furthermore, this increase will fund 1,100 new accommodation and care places distributed across different Catalan municipalities, among which Barcelona is not included, as it coordinates the fight against this scourge through another channel with the department because the problem is more severe in the capital.