The Day After Project Overview of the Welfare System – Civil Services and Government Policy

Dana Vaknin Ganel 

Supervision: Yoni Ben Bassat 

Chief editor: Amit Ben-Tzur 

Hebrew editing: Daphna Lev 

English translation: Dr. Carly Golodets 

Design: Adi Ramot 

December 2023 

The project was written in response to the revealed weaknesses of the government and public services during the October 7 War. 

Israel’s welfare services have declined in effectiveness following decades of privatization and budget cuts. Many state-led programs have been transferred to private contractors, and services that remained within government ministries and local authorities have experienced significant budget cuts. Today, we can identify three main problems in the welfare sector in Israel: a. under-budgeting of the welfare system; b. difficulty filling current positions, leading to understaffing and an increased burden on clinical and community services; c. inequality between strong and weak local authorities. To ensure that the welfare system can provide accessible, high-quality service to all demographic groups that require assistance, so that no one is left out, neglected or abandoned, the welfare budget must be gradually increased by approximately 6 billion ILS, an agreed index must be created to determine the maximum number of cases assigned to each social worker and increase the number of positions; and an agreed-upon plan must be formulated to decrease inequality in welfare expenditure among local authorities. 

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How Is the Long-term Under-budgeting Expressed? 

1. Israel suffers from a particularly high rate of poverty compared to developed countries 

2. Israel has one of the highest rates of poverty among children and youth in the OECD 

The Three Main Problems 

Under-budgeting of the welfare system 

Our analysis, based on assessing the disparity in civil expenditure between Israel and the OECD average, found that the required supplement needed for the welfare system is approximately 5.4 billion ILS (Figure 3). This estimate is similar to estimates by other researchers with respect to the budget shortfall in the welfare system, compared to other welfare countries, which stands at 6 billion ILS (Gal and Madhala, 2022). Part of this supplement must be dedicated to addressing the significant shortage of social workers and employees in other therapeutic professions. According to Inbal Hermoni, chairwoman of the Social Workers Union, there is a shortage of approximately 5,000 positions for social workers in institutions (Dor, 2023). 

What needs to be done? 

The welfare budget has to be gradually increased by approximately 6 billion ILS in order to address the various challenges, particularly the shortage of positions. 

Difficulty in filling existing positions, leading to understaffing and an increased burden on therapeutic services 

Many social workers treat a very large number of patients. A family social worker deals with an average of 149 families, well beyond the 100 recommended by various committees in Israel (Gal and Madhala, 2022)¹. The reason for this overload seems to be partly related to understaffing of existing positions. According to data from the Ministry of Welfare (Ministry of Welfare, 2023), as of 2021, 9.2% of positions in departments of social services are not filled (Figure 4). Thus, the current overload leads to understaffing, and the understaffing increases the overload (Figure 5) (Gal and Madhala, 2022). This negative feedback loop was revealed in a survey of social workers in the summer of 2020, in which the respondents stated that the salary and work conditions were their main reasons for considering leaving the profession (Paz et al, 2020). 

What needs to be done? 

Create an agreed-upon index for the number of cases assigned to each social worker, limit the number of cases for social worker positions in departments of social services and add positions as required (Halpern and Manne, 2023). Restricting the load on each social worker will allow positions to be filled by recruiting additional social workers to the system, who in turn, will contribute to reducing the workload. 

Inequality between strong and weak local authorities 

The total annual expenditure on welfare per patient is lowest in local authorities with low socioeconomic rank (clusters 1–3), and increases at higher socioeconomic rank (Figure 6). In other words, there is significant inequality, making it difficult for weak local authorities to cope with their residents’ needs. Two main reasons underlie this inequality. First, weak local authorities use more available, cheaper services, which do not necessarily provide a suitable solution². We may assume that this stems from the matching method, which requires local authorities to contribute 25% of the welfare budget from their revenue in order to receive the remaining 75%. Therefore, by providing cheap services, they require a relatively small budget. Second, strong local authorities expand their welfare services from independent sources, well beyond the capabilities of the weak local authorities (Gal, Madhala, and Bleich, 2017). 

These disparities greatly limit the provision of suitable, adequate welfare services in lower socioeconomic clusters, which is where social services are needed most.  

What needs to be done? 

Formulate an agreed-upon plan to solve the inequality in expenditure on welfare among local authorities, whether by a differential matching percentage based on the economic ability of the local authority or the type of services provided, or by some other agreed-upon mechanism that promises continual provision of a high level of services according to equal professional criteria (Gal and Madhala, 2022). 

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References 

Dor, K (2023). Shortage of 5,000 social workers: the Israelis are in a crisis – and there’s no solution. Kan News, 31.10.23. [Hebrew] 

• Gal, J and Madhala, S (2022). The right to good welfare, Chapter 2 – Lateral recommendations. Ministry of Welfare and Social Services. [Hebrew] 

• Gal, J, Madhala, S, and Bleikh, H (2017). Social service budgeting in Israeli local authorities. Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel. 

• Halpern, A, and Manne, Y (2023). A sigh of relief: How to improve the state and status of the social work profession in Israel. Berl Katznelson Foundation. [Hebrew] 

• Ministry of Welfare and Social Services (2023). 2021 Statistical Report: Services recipients in departments of social services, labor, and recipients of a range of ministry solutions. [Hebrew] 

• Paz, Y, Avayo, R, Avidor, T and Ratz, A (2020). Social loss: Experiences of social workers in Israel. Osim Shinooy. [Hebrew]  

• State Comptroller (2021). Funding of welfare services 

• Yaron, L (2022). Which services will be stopped and what are the social workers demanding? All the details about the strike. Ha’aretz, 6.7.2020. [Hebrew]