The government on Tuesday finally passed to parliament a package of laws creating new elected provincial authorities as part of a reform of social and health services.
If the reform is approved, in addition to the development of services, it would transfer the responsibility of social and healthcare provision from municipalities to 21 regional authorities plus the city of Helsinki.
Public sector bodies would remain in control of the system, but they can use private outfits to provide the services themselves.
Representatives for the regional authorities would be elected at the beginning of 2022, and the new regional authorities would come into being in 2023.
Parliament has scheduled a policy debate on the ‘sote’-reform on 14 December.