Work methodology and stages

Who we are / Strategic plan / Methodology

Prospektiker, the foresight and strategic planning company, presented Sartu with a work methodology proposal based on 3 stages. An initial stage which, in addition to making a documentary review of those reports that either have or will have an influence on the activities conducted by Sartu, established a series of factors that could possibly exert a direct influence on the future of the organisation.

A second stage corresponding to diagnostics and strategic thinking, and a third stage to define the vision / strategic option which would serve to construct the network of goals and actions to be developed during the implementation of the plan over the next 5 years.

At an initial working meeting with the SARTU Management Team, based on the proposal presented by Prospektiker, a joint decision was taken with regard to the organisation of the work process, the methodology and the timeframe for the preparation and approval of the SARTU Strategic Plan.

For this purpose, it was established that the Plan Monitoring Commission would comprise the Management Team (4 directors) and the representatives of Prospektiker, and that the working team to prepare the Plan would be comprised of a Standing Committee for Sartu, formed by two representatives of each of the organisations making up the SARTU Federation, and a workers’ representative and the heads of Prospektiker.

The proposed methodology is basically centred on the SWOT analysis, establishing 4 basic work stages:

  • Stage 1:    Preparatory work – Documentary analysis, future trends.
  • Stage 2:    Workshops – SWOT analysis.
  • Stage 3:    Establishment of the Vision, strategic challenges, goals and actions.
  • Stage 4:    Preparation of the Action Plan and monitoring and assessment model.

Work process carried out

Stage 1.- Preparatory Work – Documentary Analysis – Future trends

Documentary analysis

Compilation and analysis of information from different sources

  • Europe:
  • Directives.
  • Social agenda.
  • Employment strategy.
  • Local action to support employment.
  • ESF.
  • Social inclusion.
  • Spain:
  • State plans for social inclusion.
  • Promotion of equality.
  • Educational policies and actions.
  • Autonomous Community of the Basque Country
  • Inter-institutional plan for employment.
  • Basque Plan for insertion
  • Act 12/1998 against Social Exclusion
  • Lanbide.
  • Drug-addiction plan.
  • Immigration plan
  • Lifelong learning plan
  • Regional councils:
  • Social Action Plan
  • Training plans
  • SARTU:
  • Annual report.
  • Management model.

After analysing this information, a group of trends and challenges were established, which were set out as notes for reflection and were transferred to the Foresight Questionnaire. The trends and challenges noted down are as follows:

Trends and challenges

In the field of demography

  • Population aging.
  • Fewer young people
  • More older people

In the field of the labour market

  • Different employment rates, depending on the group (young people, women, older people…).
  • Increased activity (Lisbon objective 2010).
  • Need for adjustment – job matching: employment – training and supply – demand.
  • Precarious employment, part-time employment.
  • Incorporation of women into paid work.
  • Generational replacement.
  • Immigration: regulation, reception, employability…
  • Work organisation: employment – training.
  • Reconciliation of the work, family and private life.
  • Productivity.
  • Entrepreneurship.
  • Insertion companies, social companies…

In the field of education, training and lifelong education

  • Lifelong education.
  • Regulation of participation.
  • Increased participation…
  • Improvement in academic failure rates
  • Students with special needs.
  • Accessibility for all.
  • Modular catalogue.
  • NICT.

Social and health care sector

  • Reduction in informal support – care.
  • Increased dependency.
  • Increase in the number of active senior citizens.
  • Increase in the demand for formal services.
  • Increase in the number of disadvantaged groups.
  • Universal access to services.

In the social areal, of personal relations and community relations

  • Increased individualism.
  • Increased inequality.
  • Reduction in family sizes, single-parent families, single persons…v
  • New types of poverty.

In the economic area

  • Increased inequality
  • Increase in the number of persons benefitting from basic income support, social aid, insertion agreements…
  • Increase in the social expenditure of the various administrations.
  • Europe, ESF…

In the area of social services and employment

  • Co-ordination.
  • Local employment plans
  • Attention paid to the most disadvantages groups
  • Guidance services.

In the residential – housing area

  • Difficulties in access to housing.
  • Accessibility to housing for specific groups.
  • Shortage of rented housing.

At a European and national level

  • Enlargement.
  • Different fund distribution (ESF, structural funds …).
  • Lisbon objectives.
  • European Employment Strategy (EES).
  • Goals:
  • Full employment.
  • Quality and productivity.
  • Cohesion and inclusive labour market.
  • Priorities:
  • Active employment measures.
  • Creation of quality jobs.
  • Promotion of active ageing
  • Immigration.
  • Adaptability.
  • Lifelong learning.
  • Equality between men and women.
  • Integration of disadvantages persons.
  • Reduction of regional employment disparities.

European Social Agenda:

  • Social inclusion.
  • National plans for social insertion.
  • Promotion of equal opportunities.
  • Educational policies…

In the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country:

  • Institutional framework, complexity, competencies (Basque Government Social Departments, Provincial Councils, Associations of local authorities and Supra-municipal Organisations, Councils, Kutxa, BBK, INEM, Egailan, Lanbide…)
  • Development of plans and programs:
    • Inter-institutional employment plan
    • Basque Insertion Plan
    • Drug-addiction Plan
    • Immigration Plan
    • Health Plan
    • Basque Plan for Lifelong Learning and Training
    • Training modular catalogue
    • Act 12/1998 against Social Exclusion
    • Act 10/2000 on Social Rights
    • Charter of Social Services rights and duties
    • Social Action plan
    • Gerontology Plan
  • Development of the Basque Employment Service (Lanbide)
  • Development of the Basque Employment Council
  • Development of the territorial councils for Employment

Foresight questionnaire

Based on the documentary analysis and in order to compare and reflect individually, a questionnaire was prepared and sent to all the area heads (15), directors (4) and workers’ representatives (1) requesting them to reflect on the changes and challenges, in the first part, and, in the second part, to develop the baseline and desirable scenarios for the SARTO Federation to the horizon of 2010.

Based on the responses from the questionnaire, received from practically everyone consulted, the initial work Document was prepared for the workshops conducted to date within the framework of this work.

Stage 2.- Workshops. SWOT Analysis

During the SARTU Strategic Plan preparation, workshops were conducted with the full participation of the Plan Monitoring Group, to progressively use the preliminary documentation to prepared the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), the Plan Vision, the strategic lines and the general goals, in addition to the those actions that implement and complement the strategic lines.

The results of this process of reflection are as follows:

External analysis

Threats Opportunities
  • Ageing:
    • Impact on the budget distribution
    • Increase in the mean age of users
  • Job insecurity:
    • Removes social value from Sartu’s work
    • Conditions employment
    • Makes social inclusion more difficult
    • Does not guarantee inclusion
  • Decline – redistribution of social expenditure:
    • MeLower European contribution
    • Distribution – share with other groups
    • Trend towards care and benefits
  • Institutional co-ordination:
    • Lack of resources
    • Service providers to the Administration
  • Decline in freedom and individual rights:
    • Reduction in Community Social Capital
    • Individual rights not considered
  • Relocation:
    • Hinders protected markets
  • The plans implemented by the Basque Government
    • Uncertainty
    • Service providers with little capacity for innovative action
    • Denaturing of social work
  • The social welfare system:
    • Does not have the status enjoyed by other systems (health, education…)
  • Incorporation of banking entities:
    • Competence
    • Alternative banking
    • Interference in the sector
  • Networks of social entities:
    • Sector weak, fragile, with no consensus.
    • Scope for intervention
    • Lack of definition of our
    • State level legislation
    • Employment
  • Ageing:
    • New care groups
  • Reconciliation of family, social and working life:
    • Enables changes in the working hours, different hours, reduction working hours, part-time
  • Lifelong learning:
    • Know-how
    • Enables personal development
  • Immigration:
    • Service to a increasingly numerous, more complex group
  • Institutional co-ordination:
    • Enables leadership by SARTU Guidance services. Lanbide.
    • New programs
  • Incorporation of new countries into the EU:
    • European exchanges
    • Consultancy development area
  • Housing shortage:
    • Innovation, mediation
  • Corporate social responsibility:
    • Reduction in job precariousness
  • Rise inequalities
    • Holistic response for unstructured zones
    • Community response
  • Relocation:
    • Increased number of groups
  • Persons with mental disorders:
    • Occupational area for these groups
    • Protected job centres
  • The Basque Government Plans:
    • Co-ordination of possible actions by SARTU
    • Legislation: Basque Plan for insertion,Basque Plan for Employment
  • Social institution networks:
    • Creation of lobbies: Sector organisation.
  • Area of intervention:
    • To be leaders, promoters of insertion companies
    • Intervention in excluded zones
    • Intervention in social exclusion
    • Revitalise the communities

Internal analysis

Weaknesses Strengths
  • SARTU’s lack of overall vision
  • Size: instability, subject to political changes.
  • Lack of co-ordination: direct attention. Expensive means. Heads of areas. Management.
  • Difficulties communicating the “culture” of SARTU. Ideology.
  • Need for greater reflection.
  • Saturation, overloading of management work
  • Need for personnel – time for innovation
  • Assessment shortcomings. Absence.
  • Balance – Competencies – Associations – Federation.
  • Need for greater impact in the area of social inclusion and community development
  • Lack of procedure systematisation
  • Funding problems at given times
  • Capacity to give assistance to major exclusion.
  • Diversification of funding
  • Progress in agreements for several years in training and employment areas.
  • Project diversification
  • Size. Balance, risk capacity – caution.
  • Structure: not-for-profit entities. SARTU Federation.
  • Model, vision, mission shared by an important part of the Organisation
  • Associations in the three territories of the Basque Country.
  • Capacity for innovation, capacity to face new challenges
  • Professionalism, commitment
  • Recognition from the public authorities
  • Acceptance by the users
  • Transparency

Based on this SWOT analysis, the Vision and the Strategic Challenges and Associated Goals were prepared and agreed by consensus.

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