Tekijät

• SOSTE Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Health

Asiasanat

administration, child protection, employment services, local government services, public services, social inequality, social welfare, social welfare expenditure, social welfare organizations, unemployment, welfare policy

Sisällön kuvaus

The sociobarometer is a wide-ranging survey charting expert opinion on the welfare of Finnish citizens, and on the present state of welfare services. Themes for the 2015 survey included current state and future of the services, unemployment, child welfare, and social inequality. Views on the new regional goverment, health and social services reform were also charted. The respondents were managers or management groups of municipal health and social service offices, employment offices, and local offices of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela).

There were separate questionnaires for each organisational sector, with somewhat differing questions for each.

The questions common to all organisations studied opinions on the general well-being of the population in the municipality/area and whether there were sufficient resources to provide the required services at the time of the survey, 12 months after the survey and three years after the survey.

The respondents were asked opinions on the impact of several factors, such as unemployment and crime, on the future welfare of the population. Cooperation with different organisations in the area was studied.

Views on the new regional government, health and social services reform were investigated with questions about the solutions of the reform, role of service providers after the reform, and citizens' opportunity to participate and have a say in health and social services. Health and social service offices were asked how well they thought the reform would succeed in achieving several objectives, such as promoting health and welfare, and how necessary and cost effective some austerity measures were.

Social inequality was studied by asking the respondents whether inequality had decreased, increased, or remained same in their area and in Finland in the past 10 years, and how inequality could be decreased. Opinions on social security benefits were charted by asking the respondents if the basic level of social security was sufficient, and which social security benefits should be increased.

Unemployment was examined by asking the respondents about the impact of several factors on the increasing unemployment, and how effective several political measures were in decreasing unemployment. Finally, health and social service offices answered questions on child welfare, including assessments of the use of private child welfare services and the welfare of children and families using child welfare services.

The background variables included, depending on the organisation, the name of the organisation, municipality/area, and statistical grouping of the municipality (urban, semi-urban, rural).