Child welfare is causing departmental finances to soar

Social spending by departments increased by 2.15 billion euros in 2023, according to the latest report from the National Observatory of Social Action, published Wednesday. An increase of 5.2%, partly due to a jump of more than 10% in expenditure on social assistance for children (ASE).

Departmental social and medico-social spending increased by more than two billion euros in 2023. An increase of just over 5% over one year, according to the annual report of the National Observatory of Social Action (Odas), published Wednesday June 19. Over the whole of 2023, the total of this expenditure reached 43.6 billion euros, an unprecedented increase, which accompanies support for dependent elderly people or people with disabilities, but especially social assistance for children. (ASE), what was previously called the Ddass.

This social assistance for children alone amounted to 9.7 billion euros in 2023, an increase of just over 10% over one year, and in constant progression since 2021. The number of young people accommodated, benefiting from this system, increased by 10,700 over one year, to stand at 212,000 people at the end of 2023.

The increase in expenditure devoted to the ASE is only due for one third to the increase in staff numbers, the other two thirds being due to the increase in costs, mainly due to salary increases. But according to Odas, we observe in these ever-increasing figures an increasing fragility of family situations, including at the psychological level, the isolation of parents and the deterioration of social bonds.

The most significant increase in the number of young people accommodated by the ASE concerns unaccompanied foreign minors, whose number reached 31,100 at the end of 2023, according to Odas. Migrants, illegal immigration, victims of networks, their number on French territory increased by 28% in 2023.

The reception of these minors is governed by law and communities cannot evade it. The text which dates from 2022 requires departments to continue to support these young people after they come of age, until they turn 21. But each year, thousands of children and young people are not accommodated in the structures provided for this purpose, due to lack of space, even though their monitoring is essential from a health perspective. Not to mention the humanist approach of communities facing a population in disarray that a society worthy of its name cannot ignore.