Summary Info Project “For Quality”
1. Aims
The project “For Quality” started in November 2014 and runs until June 2016. It aims at the promotion of the “quality of services and jobs (i.e. skill needs, working conditions, development of quality standards and other ways to ensure greater professionalisation of PHS jobs)” in the area of personal care and household services (PHS). The project should also help to work towards policies that provide stable employment, support the development and training with the right skills as well guarantee better working conditions. This should make employment in this area more attractive and thus help alleviating the staff shortage in the field.
More general aims of the project are – amongst other topics – 1) to raise awareness on issues of employment conditions, professional training and the service quality of PHS among important stakeholders at the European and national levels, 2) to contribute to the advancement of policies and legislation in the area of PHS as well as 3) to provide practical tools for PHS actors in order to improve the quality of work and services.
Please also visit the project webpage.
2. Deliverables
The outcomes of the project include comparative reports based on the mapping of the situation in the field of personal and household services in 11 different countries and country reports for each of them. The 11 countries covered (see below) were divided into three “regions” for each of which a regional seminar was organised in order to discuss the country reports and to compare the situations and challenges of quality of work and services in personal care and household services in their country. EPSU affiliates from the 11 countries covered were invited to these events.
The project also elaborated European Recommendations for policy makers, as well as a Toolkit (to be published soon here) presenting good practices as well as their transferability from one country to another.
Another outcome is a newsletter produced by EFSI (to which you can sign up @ the project webpage. Please find the first issue here .
3. Project partners
The project is coordinated by the Belgian NGO/Think Tank “Pour la Solidarité” (PLS), Brussels. The consultancy chosen is the “Office Européen de Recherches Sociales” (ORSEU), Lille (France).
The other 7 project partners include one network of private (mostly multi-national) companies – European Federation for Services to Individuals (EFSI), one European network representing service providers from the social economy – Social Services Europe (SSE) –, one EU-level network from the cooperative movement (DIESIS), one network of managers of local public social services – European Social Network (ESN) and three European trade union federations, UNI Europa, the European Federation for Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (EFFAT) and EPSU.
4. Regional seminars and final conference
Three regional seminars were organised in 2015 amongst others to discuss country reports that were drafted for the following 11 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The dates and venues of the regional seminars and the countries were as follows:
• Regional Seminar 1, Rome, 6 May 2015: Belgium, France, Italy, Spain
• Regional Seminar 2, Brighton, 27 May 2015: Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom
• Regional Seminar 3, Vienna, 22 September 2015: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany
The final conference will take place on 23 March 2016 in Brussels, open participants from all EU MS.
Background information: Studies/Reports + Documents linked to EC public Consultation on PHS (2012
- The European Commission, DG EMPL, in 2015 commissioned a thematic review on personal and household services. We have uploaded the final synthesis report (July 2015) - in EN only.
- The European Employment Observatory in 2015 commissioned an ad-hoc thematic review on personal care and household services. We have uploaded below the country reports on Germany and Italy for illustrative purposes (June 2015) - in EN only.
- France Stratégie: Document de Travail: Gouvernance et organisation de services à la personne en Europe (décembre 2014) - in FR only
- The European Commission had published a Staff Working Document “Exploiting the employment potential of the personal and household services” in the context of the 18 April 2012 Employment Package that can be accessed here.
- EPSU on 18 July 2012 submitted a joint reply with the ETUC to the EC consultation on the “employment potential of personal and household services”.
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