Service integration reforms in Europe

The Budapest Institute was commissioned to review the literature on recent reforms of integrated social service delivery and identify best practices in Europe.
The European Commission’s Social Investment Package calls for Member States to adapt their social models to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The integration of social services fosters prevention and coordination between increasingly complex services and may contribute to achieving inclusive growth by improving access and take-up of services and supporting jobseekers in coping with new types of social risks.

The first part of the study gives a systematic overview of the theoretical, empirical and policy literature of integrated social service delivery, with a particular emphasis on activation services. Based on the existing literature and detailed case studies, the first part also offers some policy recommendations for the design of integrated service delivery related to one-stop-shops and activation. The second part of the study describes ten examples of social service integration in nine EU Member States, in each case describing the aims, the context, the main measures and the outcomes of the reform and concluding with an assessment of the potential for policy transfer. Both parts can be downloaded from the European Commission's website.