Aurelio Fernández López is Policy Officer at the European Commission's DG for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, Unit Social Policies Innovation and Governance. His previous EU positions include Chairman of the EU Social Protection Committee and Counselor Coordinator for Employment and Social Security of the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU. Before this, he was Chairman of the United Nations Commission for Social Development in New York and Adviser of the Secretary of State for the Social Security Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Spain.

In his speech, Aurelio Fernández López gave an outlook on the strategic embedding of social innovation, highlighting how social innovation can be used as a tool for social policy making at local, regional, national and European level.

He describes social innovation as a tool to be used in social policy making at all levels in order to render social policies and services more efficient and effective, mobilise local actors and integrate various stakeholders – all with the overall objective to find answers to complex social challenges and reach the targets set in the Strategy Europe 2020. He emphasized the role of public authorities in achieving greater sustainability and a more systemic change by scaling up social innovation in cooperation with partners and stakeholders and highlighted the importance of measuring results in order to achieve more evidence based and socially more effective policies.

Three Perspectives of Social Innovation

Mr. Fernández López started with describing the current challenges that require a new approach: Youth and long term unemployment have been rising as have inequality, child poverty and homelessness.The European Commission's response to the crisis are the Employment Package, the Youth Guarantee and the Social Investment Package – drafted with the overall objective of reaching the targets of the strategy Europe 2020, that is to lift at least 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020. However, the EU is not making enough progress on this target. To sustain our social protection systems and to move closer to the Europe 2020 target, national welfare systems must be modernised. These reforms need to take into account structural trends, such as increased ageing, changing family structures and changing labour market patterns in the 21st century. To achieve this, social innovation is needed and should be understood as a tool to be connected to the different policies. Social policy innovation therefore means that social innovation is connected to the process of updating and reforming social and employment policies. Together with the the modernisation of employment and social sector public administrations and services and the support to social economy and social entrepreneurship (see also Declarartion following the conference "Social Entrepreneurs: Have your Say!) these are the three perspectives of social innovation.

The Social Investment Package (SIP)

The Social Investment Package (SIP) gives guidance to Member States on how to render their social policies more efficient and effective in response to the significant challenges they currently face. It provides a strategic social investment approach to the modernisation of social policies and the reforms of social welfare systems. The SIP is an EU level response to counter the increasing inequality in the EU and the impact of the crisis that led to an increase in social exclusion and poverty. Social Investment means investing in people’s skills and capacities. It means to address people’s different needs, develop personalised responses to activate their skills at the different stages of people’s lives and put a stronger emphasis on prevention. For tackling inequalities and disadvantages early is one of the best ways to overcome education inequality and help children live up to their full potential.

To find these solutions, social innovation is needed and should be embedded in policy making and connected to social priorities, such as implementing country specific recommendations (including through the use of the European Social Fund).

In short, the SIP is an EU level response to:

• foster social protection systems that prevent against risks, respond as early as possible and respond to people's needs throughout their lives
• activate and enable benefits and services to support people's inclusion in society and the labour market
• contribute to more effective and efficient spending to ensure adequate and sustainable social protection

The SIP has a clear focus on social policy innovation: It aims at embedding innovation in evidence-based policy making (with regard to the transfer and scaling of social innovation) and supporting and creating an enabling environment for innovators and social entrepreneurs.

What is needed for social innovation and the implementation of the SIP?

Like Peter Ramsden, Mr. Fernández López highlighted the need of offering people tailored benefits and solutions in order to capacitate them. There’s also a need for joining up quality education, training, lifelong learning opportunities and job search assistance, along with housing support, health services and adequate social assistance. Thirdly, public spending can become more effective and efficient; simplifying benefit administration can save time, money, and make accessing support easier. Improving the targeting of some benefits and services can also be helpful in ensuring that those most in need receive adequate support.

A key point, Mr. Fernández López emphasized is the role of public authorities. Only with the involvement of public authorities can sustainability and systemic change be reached. Other lessons learned include the need to develop broader partnerships and to adjust methodologies for measuring social outcomes.

A stronger focus on returns and results is needed to promote evidence based policies and make public spending more effective. In the Progress axis of the new EaSI programme, social experimentation is promoted. Using a control group methodology it is tested if a certain project has a significant impact or not.

The reason behind this is that, as it is put in the EU Guide to Social Innovation,

“what Europe lacks is not only social innovation, but also its scaling-up and capacity to influence the policy frameworks. On the other end, policy reforms are insufficiently based on evidence as well as evaluation of their impacts.”

The focus on measurement and results allows to assess what has worked and what hasn’t as a pre-condition for the transferability and scaling-up of social innovation and evidence based policies. He also emphasized the importance of supporting and creating an enabling environment for innovators and social entrepreneurs.

The Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI)

The aim of EaSI is to support Member States with their social policy innovation and reform of social services and will help them with measuring social outputs. Besides, training and capacity building activities are provided.

The umbrella programme combines the three programmes Progress (61% of the budget), EURES (18% of the budget) as well as a Microfinance and Entrepreneurship axis (21% of the budget).

Progress aims to develop and disseminate analytical knowledge, promote mutual learning and will also support NGOs while the objective of EURES is to foster a closer cooperation between the EU Commission and Member States’ public employment services in order to encourage mobility (for more information see: programme brochure (also available in German and Swedish)
EaSI also provides funding for helping the creation and scaling-up of social enterprises. The Social Enterprise axis in the EaSI programme will help social enterprises access finance via public and private bodies which provide loans and other financial instruments to social enterprises. It will not directly provide loans to social enterprises.

Mr. Fernández López emphasized the role of social entrepreneurs who contribute to widening the supply of social goods and services and creating inclusive new employment. They also tend to bring together different actors and adopt participatory organisational forms enhancing the co-production process.

The European Commission in cooperation with MS will ensure that the programme is consistent with other Union  action such as the European  structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs) in particular the ESF. Equally, synergies should be pursued with other research and innovation programmes such as Horizon 2020.

Social Innovation and the ESF

The scope for innovation has been enhanced for the ESF in the programming period 2014-2020 with the regulation stipulating that “Member States shall promote social innovation”. Member States are responsible for identifying the themes for social innovation corresponding to their specific needs in their Operational Programmes and/or during implementation (Art 9 ESF regulation). Since social innovation is intended to increase the effectiveness/efficiency of social policies, DG EMPL expects the regional authorities to select their most pressing social challenges, which should be addressed by the ESF investment priorities. There is also the possibility of a priority axis devoted to social innovation and of an increasing of 10% in the co-financing rate.

Conclusion

Mr. Fernández López described social innovation as a tool to be applied to policy themes identified by Member States. The framework for social innovation is there, now it is the responsibility of the Member States to implement it part of their reforms in line with the Social investment package. Special attention should be given to pursue broad partnerships between public authorities, the private sector and civil society to deliver better results. Social innovation is needed to tackle today's challenges and sustain our social protection systems. The important thing therefore is to connect social innovation to all social and employment policies and to focus on results in order to achieve more evidence based policies and a more systemic implementation of social innovations. Social innovation should not be seen as a punctual commitment but a systemic task. Therefore public authorities are needed as they are the ones who can make the change happen and initiate broader partnerships among the various stakeholders.