The new Act on the Promotion of Integration entered into force at the turn of the year. The legislation now responds to changes in the operating environment, namely the establishment of 21 wellbeing services counties as of the beginning of 2023 and 45 employment areas as of the beginning of 2025. These administrative changes are enormous from the perspective of day-to-day operational work. In simplified terms, the new situation can be described as follows: the main responsibility for integration now lies with municipalities, while social and health care services fall entirely under the responsibility of wellbeing services counties. 

Wellbeing services counties provide social and health care services for several municipalities within their area. Their funding is provided by the state and is general-purpose in nature. Wellbeing services counties are required to ensure the provision of adequate social and health care services in accordance with the Constitution. The counties decide independently, through regional governance, how and where the funding is allocated, as long as constitutional requirements are met and spending remains within the given budget. At present, financial pressure is intense, and the need to cut services is evident due to reductions in public funding. These cuts naturally also affect services for migrants, even though we know that strong services in the early stages promote integration into a new society and reduce the need for services later on.  

The purpose of the Integration Act is to support and promote integration and migrants’ opportunities to participate actively in Finnish society. In addition, the Act aims to promote equality and non-discrimination, as well as positive interaction between different population groups. Of these objectives, the latter is new: positive interaction between population groups was not included in the previous legislation. This addition is necessary in our increasingly polarised society and should be taken into account when designing services.  

The biggest change introduced by the Act, however, concerns the division of operational work between municipalities and wellbeing services counties. This has already been practised during the era of municipal federations. The main challenge has been precisely the division of responsibilities, especially since some staff from the former municipal federations remained with municipalities while others transferred to wellbeing services counties. Questions have arisen around what constitutes general guidance and counselling under municipal responsibility, and what falls under actual social and health care services. Everyone has had to learn a new job description, and challenges have been unavoidable. Numerous spreadsheets mapping divisions of labour have been created, meetings and workshops held, and process charts drawn. Whether migrants themselves have been asked about the services directed at them is another matter altogether. In many cases, the situation has been at least unclear. In health-related matters, the division of responsibilities has been clearer.  

From the perspective of a person integrating, however, not everything is social and health care. For the individual, the most important thing is to find their place in a new society: to work, study and learn the language. The Government Programme set the objective for the legislation that the revised Act should help speed up and enhance migrants’ integration and employment. This is pursued by improving the availability of guidance and counselling and by accelerating access to services. To achieve this goal, it is essential to reach migrants more comprehensively already at the early stages of migration. In addition, early-stage integration services are being developed in a holistic manner (HE 208/2022). Another aim is to better reach population groups that remain outside the labour force, such as stay-at-home parents.  

This brings us to the comprehensive reform of employment services and Finland’s 45 employment areas. As part of the reform, a separate and very comprehensive integration programme was created for people integrating. This programme forms the core package of early-stage integration services and is the responsibility of the municipality. The employment authority is responsible for organising the services included in the integration programme for migrants who are jobseekers and integration clients. The minimum content of the integration programme includes an assessment of skills and integration-related service needs; the preparation and monitoring of an integration plan; multilingual civic orientation; integration training and its associated final language skills assessment; other Finnish and Swedish language training; literacy education; training and services supporting civic and working life skills, employment and entrepreneurship; as well as guidance and counselling throughout the programme period. It is a comprehensive package. The planning of the integration programme and services is based on the municipality’s own assessment of migrants’ service needs. However, multidisciplinary cooperation is key, including collaboration with wellbeing services counties, the third sector and regional employers. On the wellbeing services counties’ side, this aspect in particular raises many questions. If the municipality assesses social service needs without the involvement of the wellbeing services county, what will multidisciplinary cooperation mean going forward? At the same time, the third sector has been affected by cuts of €130 million in public funding, which are particularly visible in the discontinuation and reduction of low-threshold services across regions. This also makes everyday life and settlement in municipalities more difficult for people integrating.  

The legislation has now been reformed and updated, and the changes are being implemented collectively. The system is challenging both in its structure and due to diminishing resources. The entire field of migrant work is undergoing significant turbulence. In this text, I have outlined the legislative changes at a broad level in order to shed light on the massive transformation that has taken place. Our project seeks to respond to these changes in part by examining, developing and clarifying integration processes together with different wellbeing services counties, while also listening to people integrating themselves.