Dr Tomasz Kaźmierczak University of Warsaw

The social policy responsibilities and tasks of local government in Poland

Introduction
In Poland, local social policy consists primarily of welfare assistance, i.e. the domain covering a range of universal (categorical) social services and means-tested monetary benefits. An important part of Poland's social security system, welfare assistance is guided by the principles of personalized support and discretional decision-making.

Unlike the old-age and disability pension system - a pillar of the country's social security framework - which remains centrally administered, welfare assistance is almost entirely devolved to local government. Local authorities are wholly responsible for the provision and - to a lesser extent - financing of statutory welfare benefits and services. In addition, non-governmental organizations have taken on an increasing role in social service delivery over recent years, although this varies greatly by area. Regardless of local disparities in the availability of non-governmental service providers, authorities are obligated to cooperate with them. By contrast, the presence of profit-oriented companies in social service provision remains fairly marginal.

Poland's current institutional regime, including its social-policy model (i.e. the organizational structure and instruments, the division of roles between the state, for-profit and non-profit sectors and the relationships between the state, society and the individual), has emerged over the past two decades amid the profound political, economic and social transformations triggered by the collapse of communism. It should be noted, however, that the directions of reform and institutional choices largely reflect past experience, sometimes dating as far back as the turn of the 20th century, thus adding up to some degree of institutional continuity[1]. Welfare policy is no exception. For example, both the devolution of welfare assistance to the local level and the requirement for local authorities to cooperate with third-sector providers were enshrined in the 1923 Social Care Act, the first piece of welfare legislation enacted after Poland regained independence in 1918[2]. The basic principles of how to organize care work, very much upheld until today, can be traced even earlier: to the activities of early 19th century charitable organizations[3].

This paper is descriptive in nature. It undertakes to map local welfare assistance in Poland: the responsibilities of local authorities, the range of benefits and services provided, the rules of distribution, the role of, and forms of collaboration with, third-sector entities, and sources of funding. The focus will be on the legal and institutional set up, i.e. the official paradigm of local welfare provision[4]. It is noteworthy that adherence to law is virtually the only constraint faced by local authorities in designing welfare assistance policy.

As is well known, there is always a yawning gap between legal and institutional arrangements and actual social practice. Welfare policies pursued in 2 478 gminas (basic-level units of local government), 315 powiats (second-level units of local government) and 64 units combining the powers of gminas and powiats, are inevitably varied. Both the scale of welfare provision and the way in which the legal and institutional framework is translated into practice, varies greatly by local authority. Although the discussion of on-the-ground practice falls beyond the scope of this paper, the key drivers of this disparity will be briefly reviewed.

We begin, however, with a concise overview of Poland's public administration system, without reference to which the principles, scope and forms of local welfare assistance cannot be discussed, let alone understood.

Local government in Poland Local autonomy was at the heart of the 1989-90 administrative reform. In May 1990, elections were held for the first time to gmina councils - legislative bodies of the lowest-level units of local government: gminas. Gminas are legally established, self-governing communities of residents. While legislative powers rest with the councils, the executive is personified in the elected wójt (in rural gminas) or burmistrz (in towns). The 1990 local elections marked a decisive shift away from the communist-era centralized governance system, towards the largely decentralized regime of today. Local autonomy was stepped up in subsequent years, most notably with the introduction, in 1999, of two additional tiers of local government: powiats and voivodships, tasked with functions that were previously within the remit of the central administration.

Thus Poland now has a three-tier system of local government: gminas constitute the basic level, powiats - spanning several gminas - the second tier and voivodships - encompassing several powiats (i.e. a region) the third tier. The largest cities (i.e. those with over 100,000 inhabitants) combine the powers of gminas and powiats. The activity of central administration is restricted to the central and voivodship level.

By law, local authorities at all levels have legal identity, act on their own behalf and at their own responsibility. There is no subordination between the different levels, nor, in a formal sense, between the local and central government. The latter cannot interfere in matters within the powers of local authorities. Its role is restricted to legal supervision, i.e. ensuring compliance of local law with national legislation.

However, the decentralization of tasks has not been matched by a commensurate devolution of fiscal powers. As a result, local authorities are constrained in their ability to shape their own policy agenda, including in welfare policy. This is particularly true of governments with relatively low proprietary revenues, who are thus more reliant on central-government grants.

The division of powers between the central government and the different tiers of local government is regulated by the relevant Acts of Parliament. As a rule, the basic responsibility for meeting the day-to-day needs of citizens rests with the gminas. As paragraph 6 of the 1990 Act on local government in gminas puts it:

"1. Gminas are responsible for all public affairs of a local nature which have not been delegated, through relevant Acts of Parliament, to other entities.

2. Unless relevant Acts of Parliament provide otherwise, decision-making in the above matters rests with gminas."

Thus gminas are tasked with satisfying the day-to-day needs of citizens. As such, they constitute the basic units of local government. Some tasks fall beyond their ability, however. These - in line with the principle of subsidiarity - have been delegated to powiats or voivodships. But, unlike the tasks of gminas which are, in a way, open-ended, the functions of the other tiers are clearly defined in the relevant legislation. In reality, the responsibility for creating the conditions for the satisfaction of the majority of "cradle-to-grave" needs lies with gminas or powiats.

It is important to note that, while the tasks of the different tiers of local government are institutionally discrete, from a needs perspective they are complementary, i.e. their completion (satisfaction of the relevant need) requires inter-level cooperation.

In somewhat crude terms, it may be said that the activity of gminas and powiats consists in the performance of statutory and assigned tasks. The former comprise tasks for the performance of which local authorities are fully (including financially) responsible. The exact way in which statutory tasks are performed is regulated by local legislation (resolutions of local councils) in keeping with the general framework set out in the relevant Acts of Parliament. Significantly, some of the statutory tasks are obligatory, while the rest are optional, despite being written into national law. Assigned tasks are those which belong to the responsibilities of - and are funded by - the central administration, but are actually undertaken by local authorities. The guidelines on how to perform these tasks are laid down by the relevant central government bodies. Crucially, as decentralization progresses, more and more tasks are moved from assigned to statutory.

Social policy benefits and services belong to the category of tasks defined in the Polish constitution as "public tasks designed to meet the needs of the local community" and, as such, constitute statutory functions of local authorities[5]. Even if, as sometimes happens, relevant Acts of Parliament place them within the remit of the central administration, in reality they are performed by local governments - as assigned tasks. Thus, while the substance of national legislation, i.e. the scope and coverage of citizenship-based benefits, is defined by central government bodies (i.e. the cabinet and the Parliament), the actual implementation - i.e. the quality of provision - depends on local authorities. Because their performance varies from one area to another - at all levels of local government, there are more and less capable councillors and executive boards - so does the quality of benefits and services. Such is the inevitable cost of decentralization. But there is also an upside to this. Within the bounds of national law, local governments are free to extend the range of benefits and services provided. Thus the actual scope of local welfare provision may be far greater than required by law. Whether this is the case depends on the will and resources of local authorities.

| |
|Some statistics…. |
| |
|State budget expenditures on welfare assistance (2006) 2,0% |
|Average gminas budget expenditures on welfare assistance (2007) 19,9 % |

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Policy

Social policy in gminas and powiats
The institutional framework of local social policy reflects the broader logic of Poland's public governance system, including the division of powers between the central and local authorities. From the latter flows the key role of gminas and powiats; because they are the closest to the citizens, they are almost exclusively responsible for virtually all of welfare assistance provision. At the same time, powiats are implicitly assumed as the adequate socio-economic unit for diagnosing the drivers of social problems and implementing preventative and corrective measures, addressed chiefly at individuals and families experiencing life problems or having special needs.

|Some statistics…. |
| |
|Beneficiaries of welfare assistance services and benefits of all kind: |
|number of persons 2 291 055 |
|number of families 1 383 731 |
|number of people living in those families 4 275 980 |

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Policy

The overall logic of the public governance regime also underpins the division of welfare assistance powers between gminas and powiats. Gminas have basic responsibility for meeting welfare assistance objectives with respect to individuals and families. Under the 2004 Welfare Assistance Act, these comprise: meeting the rudimentary needs necessary for leading a dignified life; help in achieving or regaining self-sufficiency; social (re)integration. Powiats are subsidiary to gminas in that they provide specialized services which, for different reasons, cannot be delivered locally, as well as train and develop the skills of gminas' social services staff (social workers).

This basic responsibility of gminas is expressed in the range of benefits and services placed within their remit, and in the role ascribed to gminas' social work staff.

In essence, gminas provide basic benefits and services which should be available at the place of residence, notably:

• shelter (temporary accommodation in homeless people's places, shelters etc.), basic clothing (underwear, clothes and footwear according to individual needs and season) and one warm meal per day - for those who are unable to secure it on their own;

• home-based care for lonely persons or those whose families cannot provide care, when they require the assistance of others due to illness, disability or other factors; these services comprise support with needs of daily life, personal hygiene, doctor-prescribed nursing care and, as far as possible, help with social contacts; for those with special care needs due to the character of the illness (e.g. a mental condition) or disability, care is provided by specially qualified caregivers (so-called specialized care services).

• general and specialized care provided in day-care centres for those requiring partial care and help with needs of daily life; these facilities may also include places for temporary round-the-clock stay; there are several types of day care centres, the most popular being those for old people, for the mentally disturbed/ill, for mothers with small children and pregnant women; homeless people's places and shelters; and self-help clubs.

• care and upbringing in day-care facilities (childcare centres, clubs etc.) for children lacking proper parental care; the range of services may include before- and after-school activities, support with schoolwork etc. Some facilities additionally offer psychological help programs (prevention, correction) using psycho-education, rehabilitation and re-socialization methods.

• sheltered flats for the following categories of clients: people with mental disorders; youth leaving foster care, youth education facilities, care-and-upbringing institutions and juvenile-delinquency facilities; refugees needing support with daily functioning due to a difficult life situation, age, disability or illness, but not requiring constant care. Residents are being prepared by specialized staff to lead independent lives and integrate with local community. [6]

Gminas are also obligated to provide income-maintenance benefits for needy individuals and families. There are three basic types of such benefit:

• permanent benefit - for those with complete work incapacity or unable to work because of age; • temporary (periodical) benefit - for those with temporary financial problems, especially due to long-term illness, disability, joblessness etc. • earmarked benefit - for meeting a vital life need, in particular covering partial or full costs of the purchase of food, firewood, clothing or household appliances; and covering the costs of minor renovation works, drugs and medical treatment, and funeral.

Unlike services, cash benefits are selective; eligibility is restricted to persons from households with per capita income below a certain threshold.

Gminas' basic responsibility for welfare assistance is also reflected in the role played by gmina-level social workers. They are the first point of contact for a needy citizen. They carry out the basic needs assessment of deprived individuals and families and design a welfare package to meet identified needs. This may comprise benefits, services and other measures from any social-policy domain. Social workers then link clients with support resources. In the social work literature, the cluster of professional roles involved here is referred to as system linkage[7].

In each gmina, the above tasks are carried out by a dedicated agency: Social Welfare Centre.

The activities of powiats, subsidiary to those of gminas, comprise:

• residential care for those unable to function independently in everyday life due to age, illness or disability and therefore needing round-the-clock assistance and care which cannot be provided in the community; there are care homes for the following categories of inmates: the elderly, chronically physically ill, chronically mentally ill, mentally disabled adults, mentally disabled children and youth, physically disabled.

• services and other measures to provide adequate care and development support for children lacking proper parental care, i.e. in particular:

✓ recruitment, training and support for foster families;

✓ operation of care and adoption centres offering diagnostics and consultancy services, tasked to: recruit, train and qualify persons declaring willingness to adopt children, provide foster care or run family homes; provide training and psycho-educational support for persons running foster families or family homes as well as for biological parents of children in these forms of care; provide family counselling and therapy;

✓ setting up and operation of residential care-and-upbringing facilities; there are three types of such facilities: 1) intervention facilities, providing immediate care and psycho-educational support for children in crisis situations, until they are returned to biological families or placed in adoptive families, foster families or other care and education facilities; 2) socialization facilities, tasked to satisfy the vital needs of the child, provide round-the-clock care, upbringing, access to education and various activities designed to compensate for the lack of family upbringing and prepare for social life (corrective, compensatory activities, speech and other therapy), and, for disabled children, rehabilitation and specialized activities; 3) family homes, constituting one multiple-child family for children for whom an adoptive or foster family could not be found.

✓ support (including financial) for youth leaving foster families or care-and-upbringing facilities in achieving self-sufficiency: continuing education beyond the primary level (including at university), securing employment and adequate housing.

• operation of crisis intervention centres catering for individuals/families experiencing crisis situations - usually victims of domestic violence; the centres provide immediate, specialized psychological and medical support, legal advice and, if necessary, accommodation;

• counselling services (legal, psychological, family counselling - including family therapy);

• operation of supra-local coverage support centres and sheltered flats;

• services and activities targeted at disabled people, including: assessment of the degree of disability, design of powiat-wide disability policy programs in the field of social and vocational rehabilitation, employment and enforcement of disability rights; co-funding: of the participation of people with disabilities and their carers in rehabilitative holidays; of cultural, sports and leisure activities of people with disabilities; of the purchases of rehabilitation equipment, orthopaedic devices and auxiliary materials; of the elimination of barriers (architectural, communicative, technical) according to individual needs; of the rehabilitation of children and youth; of the establishment and operation of occupational therapy workshops; also: provision of job search assistance, job counselling, training and re-training[8].

The above tasks are carried out by a dedicated agency: Powiat Family Support Centre.

The described range of activities of powiats and gminas all but exhausts the domain of welfare assistance, but in order to paint a fuller picture of devolved social policy, two additional points need to be made. • Powiats also provide employment services and benefits. The relevant agencies, Powiat Employment Offices, offer typical job search assistance, as well as a range of passive (unemployment benefits) and active (job clubs, training, loans, sheltered and supported employment) labour market measures.

• In Poland, as elsewhere, a new type of social services has emerged in recent years: activation services, designed to enhance employability and labour market participation of unemployed (excluded) people[9]. Here, they are referred to as social reintegration services. Within the social-policy system, they occupy the slot between care services provided as part of welfare assistance and employment services.

At present, they are offered by specially established facilities - Social Integration Centres - and comprise two separate sets of services:

✓ human capital development services, consisting of three components: psychological support and psycho-education, aspects of general education and work education;

✓ supported employment - a package of labour market entry services offered to those who complete the human capital development programme; there are three forms of supported employment available: intervention works with an employer or in the Centre; and work in social cooperatives.

A narrower set of activation services is offered by Social Integration Clubs. Both the Centres and Clubs may be run by gminas or non-governmental organizations.

As noted at the beginning, social services of the type discussed here are universal in coverage, i.e. can be accessed by everyone based on citizenship and need. As a rule, they are fee-based, with the rules of payment being laid down in local law. The rate of payment typically depends on the financial situation of the claimant; lowest-income earners are usually exempt from payment. It does not seem as though the principle of user payment or the actual rates impede access to services; so far at least, there is no evidence to support this view. The only exception is residential care, where the payment rate has been set in an Act of Parliament at the level of the average cost of living; moreover, if the user is unable to pay the full rate out of his/her own income, the remaining amount must be covered by the closest relatives or, if this is not possible, by the gmina authorities. This dampens demand for this type of services.

|Some statistics…. |
| |
|Number of beneficiaries of selected services: |
|home-based care 90 016 |
|day-care centres for old people 19 376 |
|day-care facilities for children 38 782 |
|support centres for the mentally disturbed/ill 19 524 |
|sheltered flats 1 618 |
|residential care 83 541 |
|care and adoption centres 32 487 |
|foster families (children in) 64 995 |
|homeless people's facilities 15 251 |
|crisis intervention centres 63 077 |
|social integration centres 5 230 |

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Policy

Financial benefits, by contrast, are selective, i.e. means-tested; eligibility is restricted to those in need and with a sufficiently low per capita household income. [10]

Welfare provision procedures are governed by administrative law; significantly, benefits are granted by means of an administrative decision, against which the claimant can appeal before a court of law. The decision is based on information about the claimant (an individual or a family) established in the course of a social work interview by a qualified social worker.

***

The above activities targeted at needy citizens are among the responsibilities of local public authorities: gminas or powiats. However, third-sector organizations are assuming an increasing role in welfare provision. At the legislative level, this is reflected in the setting up of a new category of "public utility organizations" - NGO's granted preferential status because their core activity is in undertaking public tasks. The latter include e.g. welfare assistance, culture and cultivation of national tradition, education, science, fostering of entrepreneurship, health care and health promotion, sport and leisure, protection of human rights and equality, etc.

Because they are founded on the citizenship right of association, NGO's are independent of public authorities. They can, however, voluntarily collaborate with them. Such collaboration occurs in many fields, but social policy is among those where it is most intense. NGO's have thus become part of the institutional framework of social policy. The cooperation between public authorities and NGO's should be based around the principles of subsidiarity, sovereignty of parties, partnership, efficiency, fair competition and openness. Significantly, local governments are obligated to create NGO cooperation programmes.

NGO's having the status of public utility organizations can collaborate with public authorities (in reality this chiefly means local governments at gmina and powiat level) in the following ways:

• exchange information about planned activities; • hold consultations on planned legislation; • create shared advisory bodies; • public authorities can outsource/co-fund/assign public tasks to NGO's

This last form is of particular significance to local social-policy practice: NGO's are becoming an important actor in the delivery of social services. This is especially true in areas with the strongest third sector presence, i.e. urban areas (especially the largest cities), far less so in the rural areas.

|Some statistics…. |
| |
|social services are the main field of activity for 11,2 % of NGO’s |
|social services are one of the fields of activity for 22,6 % of NGO’s |

Source: KLON/JAWOR Association

As mentioned, third-sector delivery of social services has a long tradition in Poland. At the same time, partnerships based on new approaches to the financing and management of social services (the so-called mixed economy of welfare) and to public management (governance, local governance) are also gaining ground. Looking at these "old" and "new" forms, we can distinguish several types of third-sector participation in the delivery of social services.

First, some services are the responsibility of local government, but have traditionally been outsourced to NGO's: the best example is home-based care.

Second, there are local government services which the NGO's are, for various reasons, better positioned to provide. This is true of specialized care services, daycare-and-upbringing facilities, and especially all forms of support for the homeless, an area that has been all but monopolized by third sector organizations.

The third type of NGO participation is in the delivery of services which, while not explicitly enshrined in the law, can be provided by gminas and powiats based on local needs. Identifying such needs and devising ways to meet them is a natural, even essential function of NGO's. On deciding that the identified need or problem requires addressing, local authorities may e.g. co-fund the proposed activities: services or programmes. It should be emphasized that this form of cooperation often leads to innovative solutions, offering multi-faceted services and meeting needs which otherwise would not have even been spotted. It is conditional on the local government having at its disposal sufficient own funds to finance such non-obligatory activities. This is usually the case in the larger, economically prosperous cities.

The fourth, most recent form of cooperation concerns the provision of nationally legislated services which can, in principle, be delivered by public authorities, but are assumed to be of particular interest to NGO's. Thus legislation is now treating NGO's as an integral part of Poland's social-policy framework. The services in question include activation measures, round-the-clock support centres for the mentally ill, care-and-adoption centres.

***

We have reviewed the legal and institutional framework of local social policy in Poland. Reality on the ground is often different, in that actual access to relevant benefits and services is limited in many gminas and powiats. Some local governments fail to provide services they could, should or even, by law, ought to provide. The principal reason for this is fairly obvious: financial disparities between individual gminas and powiats. These in turn are a product of inter-regional economic disparities, which affect local government budgets. This pattern is underscored in how social policy is funded in different gminas and powiats.

As noted earlier, the tasks undertaken by gminas and powiats can be divided into statutory and assigned (commissioned) by the central administration. In the latter case, the commissioning party specifies how the tasks should be performed and provides funding. In the former case, complete responsibility (i.e. for funding and implementation) rests with local governments. Because the bulk of social-policy tasks are statutory, policy practice depends on the amount of own funds at the disposal of gminas and powiats. Gminas have several sources of revenue of their own, including minor local taxes and fees, but the key inflows come from their share in locally-collected personal and corporate income taxes - 37% and 7% of total proceeds, respectively. There are no local taxes and fees at powiat level, making budgets even more reliant on shares in the proceeds from personal and corporate income tax (just over 10% and 1,4%, respectively). Thus the more populous, affluent and economically prosperous an area, the bigger revenue it generates for the local budget. This logic is especially damaging for rural areas, where businesses are scarce and the majority of the population run family (usually small-sized) farms - farmers being exempt from both personal and corporate income tax. While both gminas and powiats additionally receive central government grants, they are not enough to substantially reduce these disparities.

Final conclusion
All of which leads to the obvious conclusion: placing responsibility for the delivery of social services on local government results in unevenness of access, with those living in economically lagging rural areas being hit the hardest. Even so, judging by a series of opinion polls conducted over the last decade, at least the principle of a devolved social policy does not appear to be called into question.[11]

----------------------- [1] Inglot, Tomasz Welfare States in East Central Europe 1919-2004, Cambridge University Press, 2008. [2] Zalewski, Dariusz Opieka i pomoc społeczna. Dynamika instytucji [Social care and welfare assistance: institutional dynamics], WUW, 2005. [3] Mazur, Elżbieta Dobroczynność w Warszawie w XIX wieku [Charitable activities in 19th century Warsaw], IAiE PAN, 1999. [4] The legal basis for the state of affairs discussed here is provided by the followi杮䄠瑣⁳景倠牡楬浡湥㩴琠敨㈠〰‴捁⁴湯圠汥慦敲䄠獳獩慴据㭥琠敨㈠〰″捁⁴湯匠捯慩浅汰祯敭瑮※桴⁥㤱㜹䄠瑣漠桴⁥潖慣楴湯污愠摮匠捯慩敒ng Acts of Parliament: the 2004 Act on Welfare Assistance; the 2003 Act on Social Employment; the 1997 Act on the Vocational and Social Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled People; the 2003 Act on Public Utility Activities and Volunteerism; the 1994 Mental Health Protection Act; and a package of legislation on local government. [5] The above institutional rules do not apply to contribution-based social-policy benefits and services. At present, these chiefly include social security measures (e.g. old-age and disability pensions), social insurance (i.e. compensatory) measures and – to a lesser extent – health protection measures. Realization of citizenship rights in these respects is the responsibility of specially established agencies, regulated by separate pieces of legislation.
[6] Sheltered flats, homeless people’s shelters and facilities, and the so-called social flats make up a category that might be termed social housing. Social flats are sub-standard dwellings which can be leased to persons or families whose housing needs are not met and whose monthly income is not enough to afford a market rent; the rent for a social flat may not exceed a half of the lowest rent in gmina housing. Social housing services are the responsibility of gminas; sheltered flats, homeless people’s shelters and facilities may also be run by non-governmental organizations. [7] According to L. Lister: „The goal of system linkage is to connect clients with resources; the system contains the following roles: broker, case manager/coordinator, advocate, mediator/negotiator, arbitrator, referrer.” “Contemporary Direct Practice Roles”, Social Work, 1987, vol. 32. no. 5. [8] Services and activities targeted at disabled people are mainly financed through a special national fund, The State Fund for the Rehabilitation of Disabled People. Thus they do not represent a significant burden on powiat budgets. [9] R. van Berkel, B. Valkenburg, Making It Personal. Individualising Activation Services in the EU, Policy Press, 2007.
[10] Since October 2006, the income threshold for means-tested benefits is set at PLN 477 for single-person households, and PLN 351 per capita in two-or-more person households. It is set for the period of three years.

[11] Cf. reports from polls conducted by the Centre for Public Opinion Research: Attitudes towards publicly-funded welfare assistance, Warsaw, February 1998; Attitudes towards publicly-funded welfare assistance, Warsaw, August 2004; Whom and how to help? Public opinion on welfare assistance, Warsaw, September 2008.