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EACEA National Policies Platform
Greece

Greece

4. Social Inclusion

4.2 Administration and governance

Last update: 28 November 2023
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  1. Governance
  2. Cross-sectorial cooperation

 

Governance

The national governance system is organised at two levels: governmental and local.

Social inclusion at a governmental level is implemented by:

▪ the Directorate for Social Inclusion and Social Cohesion and the Directorate for Combating Poverty of the Secretary General for Social Solidarity and Fight Against Poverty of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, are the main components of the national mechanism,

▪ the National Center for Social Solidarity, the National Institute of Labour and Human Resources and the Public Service of Employment (former O. A.E.D.),

▪ The Ministries, which pursue social policy, with the respective contact points, such as those specified in Article 9 of Hellenic Law 4445/2016

▪ the National Committee for Social Protection.

Social inclusion at a local level is implemented by:

▪ the Social Welfare Directorates of the Regions,

▪ the Regional Social Inclusion Observatories,

▪ the social services of the municipalities,

▪ Community Centers,

▪ the Regional Consultation Committee,

▪ the Municipal Consultation Committee.

The relevant authorities of Law 4314/2014, in particular the Special Services of the National Coordination Authority, the Staff Structures of Ministries, the Monitoring Committees and the Managing Authorities, provide their assistance for the operation of the national mechanism, exclusively on issues of social inclusion and social protection.

Cross-sectorial cooperation

In the introduction of the explanatory memorandum of the draft law "National Mechanism for Coordination, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Social Inclusion and Social Cohesion Policies", it is stated that planning, monitoring, evaluation, and coordination of the overall social policy of the state for the vulnerable groups of the population in all aspects and levels of administration is a national imperative. Strengthening social protection is imperative in order to effectively coordinate and co-operate with all relevant authorities at government and local level, to strengthen social dialogue through consultative bodies, and to eliminate critical policy areas. Monitoring, coordination and evaluation will enable the long-term planning of social protection, the dissemination of information, innovation and best practice, enhanced transparency and the fight against customer relations and corruption in the field of social solidarity. The National Mechanism seeks to fulfil the above purposes.

The institution and operation of the National Mechanism is presented as a measure of good governance of social inclusion and social protection policies.

According to the provisions of law 4445/2016:

The "National Mechanism for Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation of Social Inclusion and Social Cohesion Policies" (National Mechanism) is defined as the single organic formation, which has as its object the planning, information, coordination, monitoring, and evaluation of horizontal coherent multidisciplinary policies of social inclusion and social cohesion and acts coherently between the Ministry of Labour, Social Security, and Social Solidarity and the other Ministries, that pursue social policy, without changing their responsibilities for the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of this policy.

"Unified Geoinformation System" (GIS) means the information system, in which specially authorised officials of the General Directorate of Welfare of the Ministry of Labor, Social Security, and Social Solidarity enter data, reports, and statistics which relate to social inclusion, social protection, and social cohesion policies with the aim of monitoring social policies, the priorities of the National Strategy for Social Inclusion (NSRC), and evaluating the effectiveness of related interventions at governmental and local level.

Based on the above, it is recognised that the operation of the National Mechanism is an important and critical step in trying to improve the coordination of bodies and actions in the field of social policy (planning, monitoring, and evaluation). The upgrade in this direction will be supported within the framework of the new strategy, as presented in detail in the Action Plan.

The upgrade was specified based on the following needs:

-Integration of the changes that resulted from the changes of responsibilities in the involved bodies, and from gaps in issues of coordination and monitoring of the implementation of the actions at central and local level,

-Specialization of the procedures as well as analysis of the information flows between the bodies, in parallel with the definition of their content and their exchange time milestones for the improvement of the monitoring,

-Coordination of different bodies involved in joint actions, reducing fragmentation and improving synergy in the implementation of relevant actions, always based on the responsibilities of each body,

-Upgrading and completing the supporting digital infrastructure as well as developing digital tools that support the coordination, monitoring, and evaluation of the strategy,

-Upgrading the operation of the consultative bodies.