The Government delegate in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz Nalda, this morning detailed the real data of State funding to the Dependency System in La Rioja. He stressed that “the Government of Spain has opted for adequate financing of the Unit and shows that the percentage of state contribution has been increasing progressively since 2021”, when the financing route, known as “agreed level”, was resumed.
In particular, the State’s contribution to La Rioja amounted to 22.7% in 2021, 25.53% in 2022 and 40.98% in 2023, the last year that is known because the definitive amount finally contributed by the Government of La Rioja to the Dependency System in 2024 is not available. These figures of state funding, which can be consulted on the Imserso website, are far from the 15% that was affirmed this week by the Minister of Health and Social Policies, María Martín.
In those same statements, the councilor of La Rioja announced that she would demand more State funding for the services and benefits of care to the Unit, at least 50%, which according to the PP is by law the Government has to provide.
As the delegate has clarified, the law does not in any case oblige the central government to provide 50% of the financing of the Unit in each autonomous community. In fact, the law states that the central executive cannot contribute more than the autonomous communities to the System of the Unit. Despite this, “reaching this 50% of state funding is a goal of the Government of Spain and for which it is necessary that the Popular Party, which governs in various autonomous communities such as La Rioja, agree to negotiate a new General State Budget”, he added.
In addition, he commented that “being able to reach this 50% of the total investment in Dependence by the central government does not mean a divestment by the autonomous government, as is the case of the Government of Gonzalo Capellán, which reduced in 2024 the budget destined for Dependence by 3.6% compared to the previous year, which makes this figure the worst figure in Spain”.
That is why I have said that it is inconsistent to demand more state funding and, at the same time, to allocate less autonomous funds because “it must be a shared effort.”
He has also insisted that the political objective of reaching 50% implies the added difficulty of reversing the cuts to the Unit made by the Government of Mariano Rajoy, which are estimated at 5.4 billion euros.
Recover state funding
The funding route known as “agreed level” was suspended in 2012 with the PP Government led by Mariano Rajoy, as a result of the cuts it applied in the System for Autonomy and Attention to Dependency.
In this regard, he recalled that the Government of Spain recovered in 2021 the so-called “agreed level” to resume the route of financing in Dependency to the autonomous communities, reaching in 2023 the record figure of 783 million, which was repeated again in 2024. Thus, in 2023, La Rioja received a record figure of 37.4 million.
The delegate pointed out that in 2024 under this amount to 35.5 million euros because the autonomous government did not comply with the agreement signed with the General Administration of the State.
He explained that the financing mechanism known as “agreed level” allows the General Administration of the State to distribute credits between the autonomous communities for the financing of the System for Autonomy and Care of the Dependency according to objective criteria, such as the potentially dependent population, the people served, the improvement of the quality of employment, the reduction of waiting lists and the level of expenditure of the autonomous community in question.
Likewise, the economic amount intended for each community is formalized through agreements signed by the General Administration of the State and each autonomous government. These objectives and priorities are linked, among other things, to the implementation of the State Strategy of Deinstitutionalization, which seeks to guarantee a more person-centred model and from a community and proximity approach to favor people in situations of dependency to have decent life projects, chosen and shared with the rest of the population and where priority is given to home care, teleassistance and day centers.
Therefore, the financing by the State to the autonomous communities depends on the fulfillment of the objectives set.
“Unfortunately, Arraiz Nalda said the inefficient management carried out by the Government of La Rioja in terms of Dependency in 2023 meant that a lower amount was allocated in 2024.”
Real funds earmarked for La Rioja
On the other hand, the delegate has refuted the statements of the councilor of the PP in which she assured that the amount of funds that La Rioja has received in the seven years by the State amounted to 112 million.
As Arraiz Nalda has specified, these funds amount to 138,655,694.15 euros, as can be seen on the IMSERSO’s own page that collects the expenditure on the Dependency System made annually by the autonomous communities and the state funding they receive for it.
“It is true that from 2012 to 2017, with Mariano Rajoy at the head of the Government of Spain, these funds amounted to 61.3 million euros in La Rioja, that is, 77 million less than with the current central government,” he said.
To put the data into perspective, he pointed out that 2016 was the year that La Rioja received the least money for Dependence in the last decade. In that year, the Government of Mariano Rajoy only allocated 9 million euros for the Dependency of our autonomous community. In this way, “the Government of Spain in 2024 transferred 26 million euros more than those allocated by the PP in 2016,” he concluded.
*Attached is the PDF with the evolution of funding for the Unit in La Rioja.