A response to the problems of the elderly who are no longer self-sufficient is today the point where we can most immediately assess our capacity to draw up innovative public policies and develop techniques and instruments for integrating the social services and the health service. The institutional, financial, organisational and professional innovations that now appear necessary for running both the health service and the social services need to offer practical solutions to the specific problem of the aging of the population, but also have a high symbolic value in relation to the role of the public sector in solving collective problems and empirically verifying the capacity of both these systems to radically renew themselves. only subscribers can see the full article

Traditionally the creation of a welfare state has tended to centralise the powers and functions of central government in contemporary legal systems, as central government is regarded as offering better guarantees of stability and universal social services than more local bodies. This «centripetal» tendency of the policies connected with the creation of the welfare state has been noticed by constitutionalists since the 1980’s, particularly as regards federal systems, where egalitarian policies aimed at redistributing wealth have often set off processes centralising powers and functions in federal authorities, because of the need to guarantee uniform welfare standards nation-wide, in the interests of substantive equality. only subscribers can see the full article