Friday, 2 June 2017
“We need to economize through targeted spending of public funds rather than at the expense of vulnerable families” - Karen Karapetyan visits Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan called at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to discuss reforms, programs, problems and solutions with the senior staff of the Ministry.
After giving a summary of ongoing activities, Minister Artem Asatryan gave the floor to his deputies, who presented the work done in different directions, including the proposed objectives and expected results.
First Deputy Minister Arayik Petrosyan dwelt on the approaches proposed in the context of reforming the family vulnerability assessment system. Introducing the statistics, he said that according to experts’ estimates, the system efficiency is 75-77%, which means that a group of well-off households are benefiting from it. The proposed reform is aimed at improving the targeting of vulnerability assessment.
In this connection, Prime Minister Karapetyan first stressed the importance of having clear assessment criteria and digitization. “The State is responsible for its needy citizens. In the meantime, we are spending more than logically needed and, therefore, we cannot build groundwork for a growing economy. Firstly, we need to economize through targeted spending of public funds rather than at the expense of vulnerable families. We have a problem of digitalization and we will implement digitalization within all management subjects,” the Premier said.
The Prime Minister instructed to actively work with the departments concerned in order to complete the process of digitizing. “A system is to be developed to allow you to get information necessary for making additional assessments, on the basis of which the results can be changed,” the Head of Government said.
Deputy Minister Sona Harutyunyan reported on projects implemented in the field of social protection and on the introduction of a monitoring and evaluation system services. She noted that about 30% of the total cost of over 84 ongoing programs with a wide range of beneficiaries is covered by the State budget. The rationale behind the introduction a new, more objective and complete system is the clear definition of priorities in social protection policy, systematic evaluation of programs, targeting and financial efficiency, reduction of corruption risks, the development of information systems. According to the established timetable, the system shall have been introduced by 2019-2020.
Stressing that the system should provide for more efficient control mechanisms to ensure that social protection programs and the reform is implemented as quickly as possible to get tangible result, Karen Karapetyan instructed to curb the proposed deadlines.
Referring to the reforms in the sphere of children’s rights, Deputy Minister Ashot Margaryan presented a restructuring plan of action. According to him, the pilot project will be implemented in Lori Marz together with the concerned departments. The program is cost-effective because it allows almost the same amount that is currently spent on organizing the boarding schools and orphanages and child care, the alternative services to allow children to grow up in families, foster family institution strengthening, organizing the return of children to their biological families, small creating a family-type homes and other methods.
It is expected that by the end of 2017, six boarding institutions will be reorganized into family day-care and child support centers. Welcoming these activities, Karen Karapetyan said, “We are trying to ensure that children grow up in their families. It would be much better, if we managed to ensure that the children go to bed at home.”
During the meeting, information was provided on the new model of medical examination, pensions, benefits and other cash payments, the netter targeting of employment-related State programs, the introduction of new models of disability assessment based on World Health Organization-proposed international classification standards, as well as the need for improving the quality of services and other activities.
