Existence of a national strategy on social inclusion

Italy has a national strategy through the National Social Plan 2021-2023: and The Action Plan for Poverty and Social Services 2021-2023 aiming to facilitate professional integration, improve living conditions and reduce social inequalities among young people.

The employability of young people (chapter 3) and the fight against school and educational dropouts (chapter 6) are among the main priorities in the fight against youth distress in Italy, as well as the promotion of living conditions above the poverty line.

The European recommendations emphasise the need for quality socio-educational services to ensure equal opportunities, individual and social growth paths and thus stem the risk of educational poverty and social exclusion. The availability of quality public services from early childhood is a means of overcoming inequalities. The approval of Lgs.D. 65 of 13 April 2017, in this regard, marks an important milestone for social policies as it draws an integrated education and education system for girls and children aged up to six years to promote educational continuity, reduce disadvantages and promote inclusion. The system outlined by the decree is marked by multiple implementation complexities, from the territorial planning of policies to the sharing of quality standards of supply based on the conditions of access to the different services. On the other hand, a paradigm shift is needed to implement primary, secondary and tertiary education: not only is it important to convey technical-professional knowledge, but also to establish learning that allows the young person to move and navigate in a very mobile and uncertain context. In the context of the fight against dispersion, one of the most important policies with respect to professionalisation and job placement for the younger groups, is represented by the IeFP system. In recent years, leFP has seen a steady increase in participation and a recognized effectiveness in terms of transition to work, as shown by the annual monitoring reports (last of which the XIX Monitoring report of the IeFP Vocational Education and Training and of the Dual System 2019-2020) and the in-depth surveys on the employment outcomes of IeFP graduates prepared by Inapp (Results of the survey on the training and employment outcomes of the IeFPts and IFTS).

Scope and content

The Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, also through interventions funded by the PON Inclusion, has contributed primarily to accompany the national reform process aimed at introducing a measure to combat poverty, active inclusion and the strengthening of social services. The evolution of the regulatory framework, which last culminated with the introduction of the Citizenship Income, which will replaced by the Inclusion Allowance (Assegno di Inclusione) from January 1st 2024.

The National Plans were adopted by decree of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies (MLPS), in consultation with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, subject to agreement with the Unified Conference. At the end of this reorganisation, Italy has equipped itself with some programmatic frameworks:

• National Social Plan 2021-2023: The development of the interventions and services necessary for the progressive definition of the essential levels of social benefits to be guaranteed throughout the country, as a means of these resources, identifies the development of the interventions and services necessary for the progressive definition of the essential levels of social benefits to be guaranteed throughout the country. The main task of the Plan is to identify the path to shared objectives in order to ensure greater territorial uniformity. This Plan provides for a share of at least 40% of the Social Policy Fund to be used to strengthen interventions and services in the area of childhood and adolescence. The national social policy fund for the Regions is funded, for no less than EUR 4,000,000,000, to implement guidelines on intervention for children and families in vulnerable situations (P.I.P.P.I.). (par 4.4)
• Action Plan for Poverty and Social Services 2021-2023: a programmatic tool for the use of poverty fund resources to finance interventions and social services to combat poverty (EUR 297 million in 2018; EUR 347 million in 2019 and EUR 587 million per year from 2020, including a share of 20 million for interventions and services for people in extreme poverty and homelessness, as well as a share of 5 million for the financing of interventions, experimentally, for care leavers (par 4.4) with the integration of the share of the Poverty Fund of 5 million euro for each of the years 2021, 2022 and 2023;
• National Non-Self-Reliance Plan: aimed at programmatically using the resources of the Non-Self-Reliance Fund to "ensure the implementation of the essential levels of welfare benefits to be guaranteed throughout the country with regard to people who are non-self-sufficient. The decree of the President of the Council of Ministers 21.11.2019 identifies financial resources equal to 573.2 million euros for the year 2020, 571 million euros for the year 2021 and 568.9 million euros for the year 2021). For the Independent Living Projects and Active Inclusion of People with Disabilities, the total national amount is expected to be 18.7 million euros, of which at least 14.96 million euros is based on the share transferred to each region.
• Plan against Educational Poverty: this is an action plan to intervene effectively and systemically in the direction of combating educational failures. To combat educational poverty, the 2019 Budget Act (L. n.145/2018, art. 1, paragraph 478) has extended and refinanced, for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, the Fund for the Fight against Child Educational Poverty, already established by the Stability Act 2016 (law 208/2015, article 1, paragraphs 392 to 395), with payments made by the banking foundations;

The fund's operations have been assigned to the social enterprise "With the Children" (“Con i Bambini”) for the allocation of resources through tenders, while the strategic direction choices are defined by a special Address Committee composed of the banking foundations, the government, third sector organisations and representatives of ISFOL and EIEF – Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance.

There are two organisational and institutional conditions that can be traced back to the PON Inclusion:

• the focus of the programmes on social, health and labour policies is made homogeneous at the territorial level and that the planning and implementation of the interventions takes into account the activities of the third sector engaged in social policy;
• that there is a strengthening of the territorial social service, the provision of which must include the interventions and services identified in Lgs. D. 147/2017.

In the emergency period, the art. 105 of the decree law n. 34 of 2020 (so-called relaunch decree) has allocated 150 million euros, of which 135 million intended for municipalities for summer camp initiatives and 15 million intended for projects to combat educational poverty. The same decree, in art. 246, authorised contributions aimed at supporting third sector entities in the Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily, Lombardy and Veneto regions in the amount of 100 million for the year 2020, of which 20 million reserved for interventions to combat educational poverty, and 20 million for the year 2021, with the aim of strengthening action to protect the weakest sections of the population following the emergency from Covid-19. The granting of contributions is based on the resources of the Fund for development and cohesion of the 2014-2020 programming. In analogy to what happened for the years 2020 and 2021, the art. 39 of the decree law n. 73 of 2022 directed a state loan of 58 million euros for initiatives in favour of the Municipalities to be implemented in the period from 1 June to 31 December 2022, also in collaboration with public and private entities, to promote and enhance the following activities:

• activities aimed at counteracting and promoting recovery from the critical issues that have emerged due to the impact of pandemic stress on the psycho-physical well-being and on the development and growth paths of minors;
• activities aimed at promoting, among boys and girls, the study of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, i.e. subjects of a scientific and technological nature), to be carried out at summer camps, local socio-educational services and centres with an educational and recreational function for minors.

For the next 5 years all these measures are going to be further strengthened with Mission 5 of the PNRR: This mission has a very important role, transversal to the whole PNRR, supporting female empowerment and combating gender discrimination, increasing the employment opportunities for young people, fostering territorial rebalancing and the development of the South and of the internal areas, with an investment of 6.66 billion over 5 years.

In the aforementioned National Plan for Social Services and Interventions 2021-2023, all the main strategies and programs in place are listed and the Poverty Fund is only one of the sources of financing for interventions to combat poverty. Other resources and other programs (as shown in 4.4) will supplement their availability over the imagined planning. As in the previous programming, these contributions comprehend the 2014-2020 PON Inclusion, the FEAD (Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived) and the new 2021-2027 PON for Inclusion, which is included in the new ESF+ (European Social Fund Plus), of which also the FEAD program it is a part. Significant resources will also come from the REACT-EU (Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe) initiative, whose resources flow into the current FEAD and PON for Inclusion programming, for an amount of 190 and 90 million euros respectively. Finally, an investment of 450 million is planned within the PNRR to finance 250 housing-first projects and 250 service centers to combat poverty. Additional resources may also derive from the launch of the operational program complementary to the PON for Inclusion, called POC for Inclusion, approved at national level in June 2021 and which will bring together the resources deriving from the reduction in the national co-financing rates of European programmes.

Use of the poverty fund and other funding 2021 - 2023 and subsequent projections

*source: National Plan for Social Services and Interventions 2021-2023.

Regional Plans

In this context, the Plan for Social Action and Services to Combat Poverty identifies national priorities, while, in line with these, the Regional Plans will eventually have to indicate further specific objectives and/or reinforcements to be envisaged in the territories of competence. It will therefore be the Regional Plans (or various acts of planning) that will regulate the forms of cooperation between the services to achieve the desired results and through regional resources for this purpose, for example, from the funds of the POR of the European Social Fund.

Each individual autonomous region or province will therefore have to prepare a regional planning of services and interventions to combat poverty.

More precisely, the Regions will have to define the integrated offer of interventions and services in a coordinated way, to be achieved through the adoption of:

• Homogeneous territorial planning areas for the social, health and employment policies sector, providing that the territorial areas find a coincidence for the planning and integrated provision of interventions with the territorial boundaries of the health districts and employment centres;\
• guidelines capable of promoting territorial agreements between social services and other entities bodies competent for job placement, education and training, housing policies and health.

The list of financial interventions and services is taxable and, in addition to the professional social service and the social secretariat, provides for the activities indicated by law 26/2019 (see par. 4.2):

As a result of the establishment of the citizenship income and in particular of what is laid down in art. 12, paragraph 12 of law 26/2019, the Poverty Fund's Allotment Decree stipulates that any costs for the adaptation of the information systems of municipalities, individual or associated, as well as the charges for the activation and implementation of PUCs (provided for by Article 4, paragraph 15) can also be financed.

Responsible Authority

The ANPAL (the National Agency for Active Labour Policies – supervised by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies) coordinates the ESF management authorities and deals with the Economic and Social Partnership to facilitate synergies and coherence between national and regional ESF actions and elaborate on the state of planning and implementation of co-financed interventions. The 2014-20 Human Resources Subcommittee is the main venue for these actions.

The PON Inclusion Management Authority is established in the Directorate-General for Social Planning and for Combating Poverty of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies.

ANPAL is the management authority of two national operational programmes (PON) for the years 2014-20 planning: the PON Active Employment Policy Systems, the PON Youth Employment Initiative (Youth Guarantee).

The Ministry also represents Italy at a European Union level in tables, technical meetings, committees and professional networks, where the guidelines, methodological and operational frameworks are defined.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Policies also manages:

• The European Aid Fund for the poor - FEAD, which mainly finances the purchase and distribution of food. Further interventions include: the provision of school supplies to children from disadvantaged families; the activation of school canteens in territorial areas with severe socio-economic discomfort, in order to encourage the participation of students in extracurricular afternoon activities; aid for homeless people and in conditions of extreme marginality.

ANPAL also manages:

• The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), which supports workers who have lost their jobs as a result of globalisation or the economic and financial crisis. The Ministry is responsible for the management, certification and control of the contributions granted by the EGF and plays a role of coordination, direction and cooperation with the autonomous regions and provinces, responsible for the implementation of the co-financed initiatives.

Revisions and updates

All the strategies are reviewed and monitored on a regular basis. The results are published on the websites of the respective institutions or responsible ministries.