In Europe, national and regional parliaments widely recognise citizens’ entitlement to protection in areas like housing, fuel and access to health and social care. But across the continent, growing numbers of people entitled to social benefits never actually receive them.
Complex application processes, burdensome requirements, long waiting times and increasingly digital-only services have made social rights into an obstacle course. The day-to-day reality of navigating these systems has created a stark contradiction at the heart of Europe’s social models: the law recognises rights, but they are exceptionally difficult to exercise.
Our research explores this contradiction, known as “administrative vulnerability”. We have found that growing numbers of people fall through the cracks of the welfare state, not because the law denies them protection, but because the design and inner workings of administrative systems prevent those rights from being exercised.
The ‘principle of good administration’
Over the past decade, the EU has progressively strengthened its social dimension, as illustrated by initiatives such as the 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights, the Commission Recommendation on energy poverty and the European Affordable Housing Plan.
These commitments mirror social reforms and ongoing policy debates in EU member states. Governments in France, Spain, Germany and Ireland, for example, have all taken steps to broaden access to income support, housing assistance and essential services. But these expanded rights don’t just depend on legislative ambition – they also have to translate into administrative practice.
In theory, the EU also protects the delivery of these rights. The “principle of good administration” is enshrined in Article 41 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It states that “every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time” by public institutions.
However, such protections rely heavily on public management of resources and administrative support. This means administrative design, resource allocation and procedural accessibility can make or break a citizen’s ability to exercise those important rights everyone is talking about.
Administrative vulnerability
Across Europe, exercising rights depends on one’s ability to navigate rigid bureaucracy and a litany of complex processes that are not adapted to vulnerable people’s needs. These range from burdensome documentation requirements to fragmented decision-making, strict deadlines, and procedural assumptions about the state of applicants’ lives.
Administrative design creates exclusion throughout the continent. Here are two particularly prominent examples:
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In 2020, Spain launched the Ingreso Mínimo Vital, a means-tested universal basic income scheme. To access this payment, applicants have to submit extensive paperwork proving household makeup, income, residency and family status. The required documents are often held by different public bodies that do not communicate with one another. Applicants are also expected to identify and correct administrative errors themselves.
All this means processing times can extend for many months, leaving eligible households without the income support they need, and are legally entitled to.
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In the Netherlands, the 2005-2019 childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) revealed that automated fraud-detection algorithms systematically flagged low-income families from foreign backgrounds as “high-risk”, shifting the burden of proof onto people seeking assistance.
The fallout from the scandal brought down the Dutch government. It showed how patronising administrative logic, focused on controlling beneficiaries rather than supporting them, can produce harm and exclusion, even in a welfare system with strong formal social rights.
These barriers disproportionately affect people in vulnerable situations, combining to create “administrative vulnerability”: exclusion generated not by the absence of rights, but by the way public administrations operate. This structural problem is present across almost all welfare regimes.
Digitalisation has introduced a new layer of exclusion, and accelerated during the COVID-19 crisis. New online-only systems have streamlined interactions for many, but mandatory electronic identification and reduced in-person support make the ability to exercise social rights increasingly dependent on digital skills.
Insights from Galicia, Spain
Though it is far from unique, Spain illustrates this gap particularly clearly. In recent years, the central government and some of its autonomous regions have expanded social rights through ambitious legislation on income support, housing, and social protection.
However, the non-take-up ratio is high, as illustrated by the Ingreso Mínimo Vital – more than half of those eligible for the payment never receive it, largely due to administrative barriers rather than legal ineligibility.
Our research group hypothesised that bureaucracy – onerous requirements, long procedures, invasion of benefit recipient’s privacy, and so on – constitutes a significant barrier to exercising constitutionally recognised social rights.
To test this, we focused on Spain, choosing the autonomous region of Galicia because it has devolved powers in social services and housing.
We analysed complaints submitted to the region’s Ombudsman, over a five-year period and interviewed civil society organisations working with people in vulnerable situations. We found evidence of administrative vulnerability in multiple areas: healthcare, disability recognition, housing support, and social assistance to women victims of gender based violence.
We then compared these findings with reports from other regional ombudsmen in Spain, including Catalonia, Andalucia and the Basque Country. The patterns were strikingly similar: administrative design consistently shaped the likelihood of actually receiving the rights formally recognised in law.
These converging results support the broader hypothesis that administrative vulnerability broadens a structural gap between the recognition of rights and the day-to-day life of those in vulnerable situations.
Simplifying welfare systems
Reducing this gap requires an in-depth review of administrative design (procedures, organisation, and institutional culture) that goes beyond isolated adjustments or standalone technological solutions. As part of our most recent research project, we have identified six key measures to guide such reform:
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Simplify procedures linked to social rights by eliminating unnecessary documentary burdens.
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Incorporate people’s circumstances into the design of policies and services. This means reviewing discriminatory requirements, with particular attention to equality, dignity, and privacy.
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In digital processes, reduce identification and security requirements to what is strictly necessary, especially when they affect people in situations of vulnerability.
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Move towards automatic and proactive benefit-granting systems, making use of information already held by public authorities.
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Strengthen face-to-face assistance and administrative support. Ensure the availability of services that help people navigate digital processes.
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Develop indicators on timeframes and resources to identify bottlenecks and exclusionary biases in the exercise of social rights.
Ultimately, the welfare state should not be measured solely by the rights it formally recognises, but by its real capacity to make those rights effective for those who need them most. Expanding rights is of little value if accessing social benefits continues to be an obstacle course, especially for those who start from a position of disadvantage.
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