Month: May 2013

IA claims that the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare must elaborate the amount of financial support provided in the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection.

Statements of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare during the parliamentary debate on the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection that Montenegro has the most generous financial support in the region and that there is no room to increase it, remain unfounded given the fact that the amount of social assistance and child benefits represent nearly one sixth of the minimum consumer basket. All financial contributions are set as a fixed amount. The adjustment of certain financial benefits to a larger amount remains a possibility depending on the prior opinion of the Ministry of Finance. This means that the adjustment of financial benefits is left to the decision of the Government.

Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare in the explanation attached to the text of Bill Law does not provide any analysis or information about the way thecertain amount of proposed financial support was determined. That raises additional doubts in proposed solutions. The basis and amount of financial benefits must be determined by a careful analysis of financial and other indicators, but the public is not informed about it. The public should know the reasons for determining the level of their financial benefits.The duty of the Ministry is to explain and make available all such analyzes. If not, all the claims of civil society representatives who support the growth of existing and introduction of new financial benefits remain eligible.

Also, it is not clear based on which assessments and analysis the Ministry stipulated that the implementation of the new Law will take less financial resources compared to the funds that had been allocated form the implementation of the Law on Social and Child Protection which is currently in force. Bear in mind that the new law envisages the establishment of the Institute for Social and Child Protection and the Social Innovation Fund within the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, introduces the institute of social inspection and provides transformation of social and child protection facilities in order to encourage the development of social services. All these innovations request financial resources.

The explanation of the new provisions of the Bill Law which limit the right to reimbursement to employer for maternity or parental leave and the exercise of the right to material assistance for the nine months during the year, cannot be justified by budgetary reasons and establishing greater control, especially if the budget savings are achieved by limiting the exercise of the right of beneficiaries (in this case/ employers and beneficiaries of social assistance)who meet and comply the statutory obligations.

We believe that the biggest budget savings can be achieved by proper targeting of funds and prevention of abuse of rights. Significant contribution in that respect should be the establishment of a social welfare information system (social cards).

After introducing social cards and directing financial benefits to those who really need it, the Ministry will have no reason not to increase the amount of financial support to sociallyvulnerable categories and align it with actual cost of living in the country.

Dragana Radović
Policy Analyst

Adoption of the provisions of the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection which regulate the amount of funds for reimbursement to the employer i.e. to employee on maternity or parental leave, would endanger the policy of increasing the birth rate, the right to family planning, social security and the rights of the mother and child as well as the (professional) status of women who earn a salary greater than the average salary in the country.

IA supports the initiative of civil society and the opposition’s efforts to amend the provisions of the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection, which, among other things, regulates the amount of funds for reimbursement to the employer. We believe that by limiting the amount of these funds to the amount that cannot exceed the rate of the average salary in the country for the last year, will not be achieved the intended effects of savings in the state budget. This is obvious if we take into account the number of citizens of Montenegro who earns a salary over the average. Instead of cutting the public expenditure, the Government will actually encourage discrimination and increase unemployment among women with a higher income, and endanger family planning.

Employers will be encouraged to modify collective agreements and reduce wages of employees on maternity or parental leave or fire them. Women who have a contract for a fixed period of time or that work less than a three months for the employer will be particularly affected, as in this case reimbursement to employer is not predicted. It is realistic to expect that employers will neither be able to nor willing to bear this burden.

We believe that the numerous abuses of the right to reimbursement for maternity or parental leave gaps in the work of competent inspection authorities. Debt to the state, which has emerged as a result of abuse, should not be compensated by those who earn over-average wages. The reimbursement funds are paid off from the Fund for health insurance i.e. from the wages of the Montenegrin citizens which are, among other things, intended also for this purpose.

Instead of encouraging births and supporting women and parents, the adoption of these provisions will threaten them. Previous scandals and abuses warns that labor inspection is not doing its job or at least that it hasn’t been doing it properly. Instead of punishing mothers and children, state should improve the performance of inspection bodies to prevent future abuse of the right to a reimbursement to employer for maternity or parental leave.

Dragana Radović
Policy Analyst

“Bill Law on Social and Child Protection is significantly improved compared to the Bill previously withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure, but it can be still amended regarding strengthening the cooperation, defining the shelters for homeless and record keeping,” the IA stated.

IA’ s public policy researcher, Dragana Radovic, attended 7th Session of the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Labour and Social Welfare and contributed to the discussion about the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection.

IA believes that the essential part of the Bill Law is significantly improved and that it promotes the most important novelties envisaged by the social and child protection reform, recognizes the role of civil society organizations as the most frequent providers of social services, defines and encourages the development of social services, with emphasis on de-institutionalization and providing access to social services in local communities, introduces licensing and accreditation process, establishes the Institute for Social and Child Protection and improves record keeping in a form of making social cards or the electronic database of the beneficiaries of social and children protection rights.

“However, we believe that there is a room for amendments when it comes to defining the term of homeless, strengthening the cooperation between the employment agencies and social welfare centers, record keeping and defining the service of shelters for homeless,” said Radovic.

Radovic pointed out that it was necessary to include more representatives of civil society in drafting and commenting on the Draft Law on Social and Child Protection. “We especially refer to the Article 17 of the Bill entitled Strategic documents and warn that the practice is to first adopt strategies which define the long-term goals and priorities of social and child protection, and then laws and other regulations. Drafting of this law made an exception from this practice. ”

When it comes to managing data, Article 148 stipulates record keeping of service providers and beneficiaries of the rights in social and child protection. IA believes that it is necessary to undertake certain actions in order to oblige social services’ providers, especially civil society organizations, to regularly exchange data and information about the beneficiaries of their services. This measure leads to establishing of a unique and reliable database of service providers and services available in local communities, but also prevents the abuses. IA suggests this obligation of data exchanging to be arranged by the agreement between a contractor (state or local government) of social services and social services’ providers. This is a temporary solution until the establishment of providers licensing, which is planned for a period of two years after the Law come into force.

“The concept of homelessness is not adequately defined. Homeless is not a just a person who lives in the open air or on the street, but also a person who is temporarily placed in a shelter or any person who has no property or means for living,” said Radovic.

Although the focus of social and child protection reform is on the development of social services, the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection does not clearly define all types of accommodation. In particular, for foster care and family accommodation is not provided when and in which situations should be provided certain types of accommodation (standard, emergency, temporary accommodation, with intensive or additional support) neither it is provided the regulation of this issue by specific bylaw. Also, the shelter service is just mentioned but not defined neither is predicted the specific bylaw which will define this service. Although IA argues that the shelter service should be under the jurisdiction of local governments, definition of the basic criteria for the provision of this service in the Bill Law is necessary especially if we have in mind that the local government is not obliged to provide additional social rights and child protection.

The Bill Law promotes activation of beneficiaries of social assistance who are able to work, but does not bind the conclusion of individual plans of activation on overcoming adverse situations of beneficiaries. Specifically, the Bill Law provides that the Centre for Social Work may (or may not) make an agreement on overcoming adverse situations of beneficiaries. IA believes that the individual activation plan must be mandatory for all beneficiaries of social assistance able to work or at least, the Bill Law or bylaw must define criteria on which center for social work can assess whether or not to conclude this plan.

IA believes that it is not necessary to restrict the right to reimbursement to employers for maternity and parental leave as well as the right to financial support (social assistance) to those beneficiaries who are able to work if they meet all the obligations stipulated in the individual activation plan and individual employment plan. Managing and monitoring these cases require intensive cooperation between the Employment Agency and the Center for Social Work and coordination of the activities envisaged in the plans of these two institutions.

Although a large number of IA’s recommendations and comments on the Bill Law on Social and Child Protection are adopted by both- the proposer and the MPs (members of the Committee), it is necessary to take further actions for amendments, in order to improve the quality of new normative framework of social and child protection.

Dragana Radović
Policy Analyst