[DESIRE] - Analysis on provision of public services in lagging regions and areas with special needs
Projects
March 2024 – January 2025
EUR 79,999.00
In the European Union access to essential services is guided by the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) where Principle 20 stipulates that everyone has the right to easy-to-use and affordable key services, including water, sanitation, energy, transport, financial services and digital communications. Currently, comprehensive evidence on the access to services across the EU is lacking. As outlined in the Action Plan for the European Pillar of Social Rights, the Commission released the first-ever "Access to Essential Services in the EU" report in June 2023. Based on triangulation of various sources (such as the report of European Social Policy Network and Eurofound), the report highlighted that people at risk of social exclusion and disadvantaged groups face particular challenges. The report also provided overview on different solutions being used across member states to ensure access to public services. One can also read a concise summary of the outcomes of the report in the ESPON TerritoriAll magazine.
Although highly informative, none of these reports provide a particular territorial perspective on the access to public services. To better understand the current state of play and international good practices, the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the ESPON EGTC launched a research study in March 2024, called ESPON DESIRE.
The objective of the research is to deliver a comparative outlook on how the provision of services in lagging regions and regions with special needs is addressed in European countries and regions. More specifically, the Hungarian Presidency seeks to find out at which territorial level certain public services (especially those which are not economically viable) are provided in lagging regions by other Member States and EFTA countries, what population and area they cover, and what the general organising principle of these services is.
The contracted service provider was asked to look into five types of services:
- Education (primary and secondary).
- Health (primary, outpatient and preventive care).
- Social care (childcare, elderly care).
- Regional public transport (ensuring access to work).
- Retail accessibility (although this is not per se a public service).
During the study, the service provider performed three major tasks:
- Analysed the state of play of services of general interest in Europe’s lagging regions and areas with special needs (data analysis), covering:
- Access to services.
- Delineating areas that are suffering from poor access to services of general interest (inner peripheries).
- Analysis of the population that live in these areas.
- Produced 5 longer case studies (covering Latvia, Hungary, Spain, Finland and Ireland) with an aim to describe how and at which level service provision is organised in these countries if the private sector is involved if alternative solutions are used, whether public service delivery is adapted to the needs of specific territories, and if and how the organisation of public service provision is enabling a good quality of life and the reducing inequalities.
- Produced over 30 shorter case studies from all over Europe (2-pagers), describing good practices and practical solutions
This research primarily focused on “lagging regions”. The study adhered to rather more conventional approach, by concentrating broadly on “less developed regions” as defined by the EU Cohesion Policy’s (2021 – 2027) eligibility criteria. Less developed regions thus are NUTS 2 regions whose GDP per inhabitant is less than 75 % of the EU 27 average (in PPS and averaged over the period 2015–2017). The research also addressed areas with special needs, which are areas that, for example, lack a critical mass; are demographically shrinking and/or aging; are remote from urban centres; and/or have a low potential accessibility in the European or national context. The study broadly adhered to areas which were presented and explored in the ESPON BRIDGES project (mountain and coastal areas, islands and sparsely populated areas), and which were defined at LAU 2 level
Policy questions
The study is addressing the following policy questions:
- Which territorial level is optimal to provide each type of public service in organisational terms?
- Which public services (and in what form) are essential at what territorial level to avert depopulation and offer pre-conditions for ensuring a good quality of life? Is there a minimum package of public services that shall be present and/or accessible for everyone everywhere?
- How can different types of inequalities (territorial, among populations groups, etc.) be reduced/counterbalanced by optimising the organisation of the provision of public services?
- Can the private sector be involved in providing public services, what could be their role?
- What are the opportunities and constraints of alternative solutions (e.g. digital and mobile services)? What are, for instance, the positive and negative impacts of digitalising public services?
Expected results
The main outputs of the service will be:
- A report on pan-European data analysis.
- Five longer case studies.
- Collection of shorter case studies on practical solutions in terms of service delivery.
- Report on benchmarking, conclusions and recommendations.
- Data and interactive maps and graphs which will be showcased in the ESPON Portal
More information
Contractor: Polytechnic University of Valencia
Joint Partners: TCP International (DE), HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (HU), University of Eastern Finland, Baltic Institute of Social Sciences (LV), University of Galway (IE)
Contact:
Zintis Hermansons (Research and Policy Manager) [email protected],
Laura Dimitriu (Administration and Contract Manager) [email protected]