The article is based on a re-reading of some of the main results of an investigation by Ires (Institute of Economic and Social Research) on some of the characteristics of local systems’ social services for elderly non-self-sufficient persons. While bringing out some good practices to be found in the country both in regulations and in organisation and management, the study - carried out in 100 provincial capitals - confirms how widespread are traditional services for the non-self-sufficient, characterised by poor integrated services and by an imbalance between (most widespread) economic contributions and services. This introduces the complex subject of the relation and integration of «social» and «health» expenditure, which, whatever choice is made, will require the deployment of much greater resources than there have been in the past, although not necessarily starting from scratch. This raises the question of setting up «Funds for the non-self-sufficient» - now more and more often on a regional as well as national basis - understood as a «social» response able to channel and contain the economic effort that is inevitably required by the new challenge.only subscribers can see the full article

In Italy the constitutional reform of section V in 2001 attributes legislative responsibility for education and professional training to the Regions/Autonomous Provinces. These territorial institutions passed regulations to create integrated sysytems of training and education that would bear in mind manufacturing requirements and, some more than others, to integrate the various channels of financing. Starting from this scenario, the essay provides an up-to-date account of the regional system of education and professional training in Italy, dwelling in particular on the regional laws and the operative regional plans (Por) Esf 2007-2013 for Emilia-Romagna and Campania which underwrite agreements with the social partners for a complementary use of (national and regional) public and private (joint regional funds) resources for continuous training.only subscribers can see the full article

The article examines the emergence of new «spaces of social citizenship» at sub-national level in Italy with reference to welfare policies. In this sector, intermediate levels have traditionally had a major role since the Regions were first set up, and this has gradually extended to the attribution of exclusive responsibility in the matter, thanks to the recent reform of section V of the Constitution. After tracing the historical development of welfare policies in Italy, the article analyses the differences that exist at regional level in terms both of expenditure and of services offered. The essay concludes with some reflections on scenarios and prospects that are opening in our country today for the welfare sector, particularly wth reference to the process of defining essential levels of services.only subscribers can see the full article

This essay examines the various phases in the development that has taken place over a decade in regional legislation on the labour market. It begins by considering the organisational and functional modernisation of labour services, a result of the administrative decentralisation of the late 1990s that implemented the so-called Bassanini Reform. But it was the constitutional reform of 2001, giving the Regions legislative power over «protection and safety in the workplace» that was, for some of them at least, the opportunity for rethinking the role of local administrations in overseeing the labour markets in their territory. Not only has there been a rethinking, more or less serious, of the oranisational and managerial model of the 1990s, but the Regions in particular, on the lookout as they are for areas of intervention that tend to be ignored by central government, have started to experiment new ways of encouraging «quality of work».only subscribers can see the full article