Spain's Public Services Win Over UK Expatriates

Spain offers much more than sunshine and cheap sangria to its UK expatriate population. Its education and health services, and its public transport system, leave the UK in the shade.

These are the findings of a new survey of UK expats by Home España, a leading Spanish estate agent.

Spain's obvious attractions, like its sunnier climate and lower cost of living, scored highly as expected, but people also gave top marks to Spain's public services compared to those in the UK. According to Kieran Bryan, Home España's Managing Director, "So many of our buyers tell us how impressed they are by the high standard of the local public services in their area of Spain. As new expatriates, this really helps make them feel welcome and settle in quickly."

Nearly 50 percent of replies stated Spain's public healthcare was better or much better, with a further 26 percent stating it was equivalent to the UK. These high percentages are especially reassuring for older, retired people and parents with young families -- or indeed anyone who is concerned about health service standards.

In education, over 50 percent of people said Spanish schools were the same or better than their UK equivalent -- and remember, that's despite the language difference.

Spain has invested heavily in its transport infrastructure in recent years and this is reflected in the survey results with again, over 50 percent of people stating public transport is the same or better than in the UK.

The survey also covered the main reasons why people had moved to Spain. Interestingly, while 70 percent of people stated that they found the cost of living was lower in Spain than in the UK, under 3 percent put this as the best thing about living in Spain. The most popular reason why people had moved to Spain, getting over 35 percent of votes, was the general quality of Spanish life.

These results seem to show that the high quality of Spain's public services really add to people's quality of life. For many UK expatriates, Spain is not just for holidays -- it is also real place to call home.

Read the full survey results at http://www.homeespana.co.uk/news.asp

UK Emigration - Spain top European destination

A new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research envisages that as many as 3.3 million pensioners might move abroad by the middle of the century. This would be a threefold increase in the 1 million or so British pensioner already living overseas.

All in all, an estimated 5.5 million British people live permanently abroad – almost 10% of the UK population. During 2005, some 2,000 Brits left the country for good every week. “If current trends continue, we could expect as many as a million more British nationals to emigrate over the next 5 years” the report’s authors write. Australia is the most popular overseas destination, with 1.3 million Brits now living down under. Spain is the second most popular destination, with 761,000 British emigrants.

Within Europe, Spain is the most popular destination by a wide margin. Ireland is next, with 291,000, ahead of France with 200,000. Other popular European ‘quality of life’ destinations are Cyprus (59,000), Portugal (38,000), Turkey (34,000), Italy (26,000), and Greece (18,000).

Including part time residents, there are 990,000 Brits in Spain, 74,636 of whom are pensioners. By age group, 39.4% are in the 45-64 years of age bracket, and 24.7% are 25-44 years old. To date, only 21.5% are 65 or above.

These figures show that, when it comes to attracting Brits, Spain continues to enjoy a thumping lead over the European competition. France is Spain’s biggest ‘quality of life’ competitor, but almost four times as many Brits choose to live (and buy property) in Spain than in France. In terms of popularity, all other European destinations are almost insignificant in comparison to Spain.

As the number of Brits abandoning the UK in favour of a better quality of life abroad increases, Spain will continue to be the top European destination, and may even increase its lead over competitive destinations. Spain’s reputation has taken a hit recently because of illegal building scandals, corruption scandals, and the scandalous behaviour of some large property sales organisations, all of which have combined to undermine buyer confidence in Spain. But these problems will be sorted out, and schemes will emerge to help Brits buy with total security in Spain. Once this has happened, there will be nowhere that can compete with Spain’s quality of life, whilst only being a couple of hours by plane from the UK.