Social planning

An organized, purposeful and professionally collaborative or interdisciplinary approach to the analysis, modification or design of social systems and structures.

A Social Policy Agreement signed by fourteen Member States of the European Community has been incorporated into the Single European Act (EC Treaty) by the Treaty of Amsterdam, so putting an end to a complex situation. From 1993 to 1999, there were two distinct legal bases for social policy measures: the EC Treaty itself and a separate agreement from which the United Kingdom had opted out. Now all social policy measures can be adopted on the basis of the new Title XI of the EC Treaty. The objectives set by the Treaty draw on the 1961 European Social Charter and the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers. They were already incorporated in the Social Policy Agreement and cover employment promotion, proper social protection, dialogue between management and labour, the development of human resources, and combating exclusion (Article 136).