Meine-Rehabilitation.de is a new web portal set up by the German Federal Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund – DRV Bund) to help people find a quality-assured rehabilitation centre. For each centre, users can see the results of the quality assurance audits carried out by the DRV Bund. The new online service allows the DRV Bund to fulfil its legal obligation to publicly report quality assurance results for rehabilitation centres and support insured persons in exercising their right to choose a rehabilitation provider.

Social security organizations are currently poorly rated online on search engines like Google or on employer assessment platforms. This is the case in many countries.

These poor ratings give the image of a degraded public service and can have repercussions on the recruitment process for new employees.

The aim of this experimental project, led by URSSAF Languedoc-Roussillon in France, is to set up a system to improve the e-reputation of social security organizations. It is based on a review management system and monitoring.

The war situation in Ukraine puts millions of citizens living in that country at serious risk, resulting in the abandonment of a considerable number of people, seeking refuge in countries willing to welcome them.

It is important that there are credible and fast reception and integration mechanisms that allow our country's humanitarian response capacity to be more consistent by providing a set of job opportunities existing in Portugal, facilitating a wider integration of Ukrainian citizens and their families.

The funeral grant of civil servant old-age or invalidity pensioner who dies while receiving a pension is paid, upon request, primarily to his/her spouse. If there is no spouse, to his/her children. If there is no spouse and children, to his/her parents. If there is no parents, to his/her siblings. If there are no siblings, to those who certify that they have incurred expenses up to the amount of the invoice, not exceeding the amount of funeral grant to be made.

In order to meet the needs of families with disabled children aged 3–17 who wish to use mainstream optional and extracurricular childcare facilities, the Family Branch in France has set up ad hoc funding support. This support offsets the extra costs incurred by different facilities (such as disability training/awareness-raising for activity teams, additional staff, adapting and purchasing equipment, preparation, and coordination time, etc.).

The “Complemento Solidário para Idosos” (CSI) is a social assistance programme in Portugal designed to provide financial support to elderly individuals who are in a situation of economic vulnerability. The programme offers a financial supplement to the pension with the goal to help low-income elderly citizens meet their basic needs and improve their quality of life.

In the face of demographic transition, finding ways to offer citizens greater transparency about personal retirement planning and improve their level of knowledge about retirement planning has been a big topic of discussion for more than 20 years.

The Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu – SGK) of Türkiye pays pensions to approximately 16 million people every month. There are different types of insurance within the scope of the current law in our country. Payments to retirees are made on different days of the month (1st group on 17-26 of each month, 2nd group on 26-28 of each month, 3rd group on 1-5 of each month). Inappropriate payments frequently occur due to death-related reasons. The aim of this project is to reduce inappropriate payments and increase efficiency in payments.

In 2020, the Government of Azerbaijan approved a regulation for the Individual Rehabilitation Programme (IRP) for persons with disabilities. The individual programme includes a set of measures related to the medical, vocational, psychological-pedagogical rehabilitation and the development of social skills of persons with disabilities.

To help disabled people to be more independent, the way the Disabled Adult Allowance (Allocation aux adultes handicapés – AAH) is calculated was changed on 1 October 2023. We produced a video to offer support to those who receive the allowance. The communication methods used have been adapted to the target audience; as some recipients have hearing impairments, this video has been dubbed in French sign language (langue des signes française – LSF).

Until recently, the German Federal Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund – DRV Bund) had several different customer service departments, each responsible for a specific area. There were two major issues associated with this model. Firstly, it was difficult to handle customer service queries in a consistent, transparent and satisfactory manner. Secondly, to avoid extra work for staff due to not standardized processes.

The National Office of Social Insurance (NOSI) of the Republic of Moldova is an innovative and modern authority, which enjoys high level of public trust and guarantees quality public services in the event of certain social risks, the application of technologies based on the interoperability of systems is one of the key elements for the development and provision of services to beneficiaries.

We were predicting that a large number of persons who had fled the Russian aggression in Ukraine to Finland and are under temporary protection would become customers of the Social Insurance Institution (Kansaneläkelaitos – Kela) after residing in the country for one year and thus getting broader entitlement to Kela benefits. The risk was that our customer service would get strained by many new customers seeking assistance and that our benefits processing would get overloaded with a large number of new applications under a relatively short period.

The German Federal Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund – DRV Bund) has created an online German Pension Portal so users can access key administrative services (e.g., pensions, rehabilitation, insurance, and subsidized private pension plans) on any digital device. Users can log in and use the online services anywhere, at any time. Using a smartphone, tablet or computer, citizens can quickly, easily and securely file applications and find information on topics including pensions, electronic communication services and more.

As part of the agreement on objectives and management signed with the State for the period 2023–2027 (COG), the French National Family Allowances Fund (Caisse nationale des allocations familiales – CNAF) wishes to bolster its innovations and progress in the area of community listening. The decision was therefore made to set up a “LabParentalité” (parenting lab) based on an initiative launched in the French Department of Isère.

The challenge addressed by the Federal Pensions Service (Service fédéral des Pensions – SFP) and its partners was the outdated pension application tool, prompting the integration of an online pension demand system into mypension.be, Belgium’s official online pension portal.

From November 2022 to April 2023, the Social Insurance Bank (Sociale Verzekeringsbank – SVB) of the Netherlands conducted a pilot programme to address the underutilization of the AIO supplement among eligible households. This initiative aligned with the SVB’s crucial mission of providing citizens with social security.

A family leave reform was introduced in Finland in 2022. The aims of the reform included a more even distribution of family leave and childcare responsibilities between parents and better equality on the labour market. In support of these aims, we created an easy-to-use online calculator that parents can use to get an idea of the impact that sharing the family leave between parents is likely to have on the family’s income. Sharing the entitlement to family leave can often prove financially worthwhile.

Spain’s General Treasury of the Social Security (Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social – TGSS) remains committed to improving citizen services. It has therefore defined a new service model based on user experiences and the implementation of new technologies. Creating this model required an in-depth analysis of the service provided to citizens. We needed to establish a system to measure how often each channel is used, which are the most common requests, and assess which groups interact with the TGSS.

The DG Universal Health Insurance (DG UHI) established under the Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu – SGK) of Türkiye develops policies and regulates the universal health insurance sector, which concerns almost the entire Turkish population.

Implementation of a 360º Vision in direct social security, which allows a single view of all relationship interactions and all individual processes of people and companies with social security.

This new relationship model streamlines and integrates, on a single platform, the various channels of interaction between citizens and companies with social security.

The Social Insurance Administration (Tryggingastofnun ríkisins –TR) Client Ombudsman of Iceland is a new position, which started at the end of 2022. The main role of the Client Ombudsman is to guide customers in the handling of cases at TR and to assist those who do not feel that they have received substantial consideration or solutions in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.

Due to the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych ‒ ZUS) of Poland has been obliged to provide financial support to refugees from Ukraine. This support is provided within the framework of government programmes: Good Start 300+; Family 500+; Family Care Capital; Co-financing of Nursery Fees.

The expected large number of benefit claims, the heavy burden of social responsibility, as well as the tight timetable to prepare for the processing of new claims, forced ZUS to take quick and efficient measures.

Until June 2023, it has only been possible to access in Iceland the Disability Card on the My pages of the Social Security Administration (Tryggingastofnun ríkisins – TR) and order a plastic card on TR’s website, but from June the card has also been accessible digitally on Ísland.is.

Lack of protection leaves workers vulnerable to the vagaries of the labour market, undermines their rights and dignity, exacerbates poverty and inequality, and jeopardizes the implicit social contract of modern societies (ISO, 2019). As the world of work is evolving, shaped by global trends such as digitalization, automation and globalization, as well as socio-demographic changes, social protection systems need to adapt to changing contexts and demands (ISO, 2017).

Since 2022, medical reports for temporary disability at work, maternity, childcare, accidents at work and occupational diseases that are paid by social insurance, are no longer received over papers but are delivered through the electronic system E-Reports (e-RM), which interacts with the e-Albania government portal, offering a fast and secure way to exchange information.

The URSSAF National Fund of France, in partnership with the health, family and retirement branches, organizes the detection of self-employed workers in fragile situations. In fact, the analysis of individual situations shows that the identification of vulnerability in one particular area can lead to the identification of other weaknesses or needs, which require an overall approach on a medical, economic and social level.

The Greek social security institutions that were integrated into the Electronic National Social Security Fund (e-EFKA), bequeathed it, among other problems, with a plethora of issues related to “pending pensions”.

More specifically, the time required to examine the cases was too long, thus a large number of pending cases had been accumulated, and citizens’ communication with the competent services was quite difficult, while the Administration of e-EFKA faced difficulties in gathering the data for the optimum use of available resources.

Having easy access to accurate and up-to-date information on social security is important to all levels of government as well as the private sector and the media. The Social Insurance Institution (Kansaneläkelaitos) – Kela, as a key institution on social security in Finland, produces such information and wants to maximize its usability for interested parties. To achieve this strategic goal, a new web service, Kela’s Info Tray, was launched in September 2022.

The main role of the Innovative Digital Factory (Fabrique Digitale Innovante – FDI) is to lead digital processes within the Central Fund of Social Agricultural Mutual Benefit Societies (Caisse centrale de la mutualité sociale agricole – CCMSA) network in France. It intervenes after the initial design processes or as soon as a need is identified relating to a particular area (health, family, retirement, corporate, etc.).

The State Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) of Latvia has introduced a new e-service “SSIA information and services” (hereinafter dashboard) in August 2022, which is available on the unified state and local government service portal www.latvija.gov.lv.

Quick Pension Guide (Snabbkoll på din pension) is a digital service on the Swedish Pensions Agency’s website that was launched in June 2022 to support individuals in the accumulation phase (people aged 26–54) to quickly and easily learn more about the old-age pension and make informed choices based on their situation.

85 percent of individuals who have completed the guide state that they will act based on the information they received, either implement a change or search for more information.

Ireland’s Budget 2022 included an announcement that those suffering from alopecia and cancer could avail of a 500 euros (EUR) grant towards the cost of a hair replacement product subject to meeting certain Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) criteria. Other changes to treatment benefit qualification were also announced with an implementation date of May 2022.

Crèches are the preferred form of childcare for young parents in France, but there is currently a shortage of places for young children, with a shortfall of around 200,000.

In the interaction with citizens, the National Office of Social Insurance (NOSI) of the Republic of Moldova, aiming to provide qualitative, innovative and modern public services, has implemented the governmental electronic payment service (MPay) – an efficient, reliable and modern software solution for the distribution of social benefit payments.

The MPay government e-payment service is used as a unique mechanism for the payment of social benefits and allows citizens to receive payments by any legally available payment method.

The Social Marine Institute (Instituto Social de la Marina – ISM) is the body that manages the Special Regime for Sea Workers (Régimen Especial de Trabajadores del Mar – REM) in the Federation of Administrative Bodies of Spanish Social Security (Federación de Entidades Gestoras de la Administración de la Seguridad Social Española – FEGASSE). It aims to meet the needs and expectations of the workers it protects. For this reason, efforts have been made to modernize and adapt its services to new technologies.

The project, “Care plan management for psychological illnesses following accidents” (Steuerung des Heilverfahrens bei psychischen Erkrankungen nach Unfällen), involves three components: the extension of case management to cover psychological disorders, the development of an e-learning seminar to train case workers, and the development and evaluation of a diagnostic algorithm. This comprehensive approach aims to bring about an overall improvement in the quality of care for patients who develop psychological disorders following a work accident.

The DOST-Index of the Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Provision (DOST) of Azerbaijan is a comprehensive tool for assessing and benchmarking social services delivery performance across different factors by analyzing collected information from several sources and drawing out insights using time-tested analytic methods. Being an evaluation system, the DOST-Index is a model aimed at analyzing activities of back offices at the macro level and DOST centres at the micro level.

Those who do not have a workplace registration at the Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu – SSI) and want to benefit from state aid, incentives or supports, will be able to get an “e-Government Application for Workplace Registration and Social Security Debt Status” document from the e-Government Application through the use of internal and external web services.

With the e-prescription in the Austrian Federation of Social Insurances (Dachverband der Österreichischen Sozialversicherungsträger – DSV), health insurance prescriptions for all insured persons are issued, filled and billed electronically. Because all the necessary information is available electronically in the pharmacy, paper is no longer necessary. This reduces the administrative workload for everyone involved.

By virtue of the amended legislation and new legislation enacted, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych ‒ ZUS) has been obliged to handle a number of programmes to support families. These are the government programmes: Good Start 300+; Family 500+; Family Care Capital; Co-financing of Nursery Fees.

The huge, multi-million number of benefit claims, the heavy burden of social responsibility, as well as the tight timetable to prepare for the processing of new claims, forced ZUS to take quick and efficient measures.

Spain’s General Treasury of Social Security (Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social – TGSS), part of the Federation of Administrative Bodies of Spanish Social Security (Federación de Entidades Gestoras de la Administración de la Seguridad Social Española – FEGASSE), has always identified itself by its commitment to innovation, using technology as a basis for expanding and strengthening its digital channels and new management models.

The good practice “Instant Pension” is part of the information system supporting the pensions business, being a solution that aims to reduce the average time it takes to grant requests for old-age pensions, presented by citizens to Portuguese social security. This solution automatically approves pension requests, validating access conditions and carrying out a provisional calculation of the old-age pension, based on the information available in the social security information system.

A Knowledge management system is a system designed to facilitate the sharing and updating of knowledge, and to disseminate knowledge that may be unknown or dispersed throughout the organization.

Through the Essentiels portals, the Central Fund of Social Agricultural Mutual Benefit Societies (Caisse centrale de la mutualité sociale agricole – CCMSA) of France has adopted a system which focuses on the links between individual and collective skills, the application of legislation and the coordination of resulting actions.

Creating “user pathways” is central to strengthening access to rights for Family Branch users. It allows us to provide comprehensive support at specific key moments in users’ lives, such as having children and during a separation.

Technical debt – the extra work and costs involved in correcting poorly designed or suboptimal source code – is an inevitable part of any Information Technology (IT) project.

Used sparingly, it is a way of delivering added value to clients more quickly. However, allowing technical debt to get out of control and ignoring the issues involved are the main causes of both short- and long-term failures of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) projects.

Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu – SSI) of Turkey makes monthly payments to 13 million pensioners through a centralized payment system. In this payment system, the bank account information that the pensioners request to receive the pension is obtained at the time of application. Some deductions are made legally from the pensions of pensioners. Examples of these deductions are enforcement of debt payments, alimony payment, healthcare co-payments for treatments and medications, tax and premium debt deductions, excessive or undue payment made for any reason.

The needs of end users are at long last being prioritized in digital projects. Those of intermediate users, on the other hand, are all too often neglected. Through its dedicated team of service designers, the Belgian National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) is gradually remodelling the interfaces of the tools used by its employees. And since a public service can only be complete if internal applications deliver the same level of user experience as end-user applications, ONEM decided to involve employees from the very beginning of the design process.

The poorest citizens are mostly single recipients of old-age and invalidity pensions. The government wants to reduce their risk of poverty. The State Social Insurance Fund Board of the Republic of Lithuania under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Sodra) wants to help in particular those who are often not even aware that they are entitled to the new benefit, or those who are unable to come to claim and unable to use the electronic claim form.

The Social services portal (the Portal) was developed as part of the implementation of the National of the State Social Insurance Fund (SSIF) of Kazakhstan plan to ensure the rights and improve the quality of life of disabled people.

The Portal is a part of the unified information system of the social and labor sphere and is an automated system that provides persons with disabilities with the opportunity to independently choose and purchase technical rehabilitation means (TMR) and services directly from suppliers.

Jobseekers are supposed to an submit Activity Report every month to show their job search activity. The report also helps the Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen ‒ PES) of Sweden, to provide jobseeker with the support he/she needs. Historically, many jobseekers have found it difficult to submit their Activity Report and otherwise comprehend what they were expected to do.

The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scheme operated by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) of Ireland provides an income support payment to people who had to remove themselves from work due to restrictions imposed in response to COVID-19. The scheme was designed over a weekend and available within days to support a large portion of the Irish labour force. Within weeks some 600,000 people representing around 25 per cent of the workforce were in receipt of the payment.

The Working Family Payment (WFP) scheme operated by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) of Ireland provides an income support payment to families in work. The scheme supports low-income families, some in part-time employment, to remain in work through the provision of supplementary income, based on family size (the number of dependants).

International students are eligible for universal health insurance if they request it within three months of their first registration with the school.

These requests, which were previously made by submitting three different documents to Turkish Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu – SGK) units, are now made online without any documents.

The labour market has been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis. In 2020, Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) compensated some 2.3 million people, that is, one in every three workers. It also provided support to two in every three employers, some 70 per cent more than usual. Many workers found themselves temporarily unemployed for the first time and needing to make recourse to unemployment benefits.

To enhance support, the Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen ‒ PES) of Sweden has developed a model to automatically estimate and purpose a search strategy on top of its traditional working streams, taking in consideration the job seeker’s educational background and vocational history to match them with the demands on the labour market. The model estimates a plan regarding the profession the jobseeker should primarily focus on, and the number of jobs one should preferably apply for optimizing his/her efforts for resolving his/her unemployment.

France’s Council for the Social Protection of Self-Employed Workers (Conseil de la protection sociale des travailleurs indépendants – CPSTI) was created in 2019.

The internal monitoring and control of its activities is entrusted to the general scheme social security bodies (the branches working on old age, sickness and social security collection) and is based on the organization, reference systems and control plans of each branch.

The coronavirus crisis has opened the floodgates to a tsunami of requests for the services of Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM). Following the closure of the ONEM offices to the public in March 2020, the organization’s contact centre was quite literally bombarded with requests from employers and jobseekers.

Since 2020, France’s Family Branch has been committed to simplifying and harmonizing its funding for children and young people. Comprehensive Territorial Agreements (Conventions territoriales globales – CTG) are being put in place across the board and, in parallel, it is rolling out a new funding model, the territorial bonus payment. Any facility located in an area covered by a CTG and supported by local authorities that have signed a CTG will receive this territorial bonus payment. The amount varies according to the wealth of the area and its population.

In 2020, the Polish government introduced a new form of support for Polish families and the tourism industry due to the difficult economic situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. This was the Polish Tourist Voucher, a benefit of 500 złoty (PLN) for each child and an additional PLN 500 for a disabled child. The electronic voucher is intended to finance hotel services or tourist events in Poland.

In October 2020, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) of Poland provided its customers with the possibility of “e-visit in ZUS”, a consultation with a ZUS expert through a video call.

e-visit is a safe and convenient form of contact with a ZUS employee. Without leaving home, customers can talk to an expert to help them with their case. During an e-visit, the customer can obtain general information on the legislation, submit applications and obtain personal data recorded in his or her individual ZUS account.

The National Social Security Institute (Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social – INSS) is an administrative body of Spanish social security which is responsible for managing and administering certain financial benefits of the social security system.

In recent years, the INSS has set itself the priority of increasing the automation of processes in all areas, and in this context, a project which involved sending automated information to companies on the benefits received by their employees in order to facilitate their HR actions came about.

With effect from 1 January 2020, the Czech legal order stipulated the obligation to issue sickness certificates in electronic form only. The arrangement became effective in 2019, so the implementation of the project was without any transition period.

Malta has not been spared the health, economic and social effects and challenges posed by COVID-19 over most of 2020 and 2021.

The well-being of the population was understandably given top priority through restrictive and containment measures to control the spread of the virus. The programme was strongly supported by the population largely resulting in a relatively low number of infections and deaths.

Responding to rapid changes in the socio-economic environment, the legal framework for social security is constantly changing. This raises the need for quick and high-quality amendments to the software that provides services to insurers and insured. Three types of knowledge are required to ensure the quality of software: Business and legal knowledge, information technology (IT) knowledge and practical experience in working with the information system. It is desirable that all these competencies in the right proportions are possessed by every employee involved in software modification.

The “Birth Pathway: support for future and new parents” was introduced to help parents deal with the administrative procedures linked to a child’s arrival and health, and find out about family benefits and various types of assistance to which they may be entitled.

Families can use a single website (https://www.mesdroitssociaux.gouv.fr) to access information on their benefits as new parents that are provided by the various social protection bodies.

The Family Benefit Funds (Caisses dallocations familiales – CAF) offer the possibility to carry out most of their procedures in digital format. Aware that the access to online administrative procedures is uneven depending on the audience, the CAF has implemented various actions to promote the digital inclusion of people.

The coronavirus crisis has had a major impact on Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM). On the one hand, the measures taken at a government level have triggered a high volume of work relating to unemployment benefits, among others. On the other, ONEM’s staff were forced, virtually overnight, to rethink how they work in order to be able to continue to fulfil the institution’s remit and provide insured people with the same quality of service.

Following the re-establishment of the State Social Protection Fund of Azerbaijan (SSPF) as a legal entity under public law, the SSPF embarked on a transformative journey aimed at the incorporation of digital frameworks into its governance structure. This strategic initiative sought to optimize operational efficiency, enhance transparency and promote robust stakeholder engagement.

Bringing public services closer to citizens is a question of equality and social cohesion. In some areas, service users have the feeling they have been left behind. To combat this feeling, the State has joined forces with nine operators, including social security operators, to set up new local “France Services” reception centres.

This allows service users to receive the necessary support with their administrative procedures in one place, which can be reached in less than 30 minutes.

Dynamic and inclusive social security systems rely on prompt and informed decision making, based on reliable current and historical data. The online open data platform developed by the Belgian National Employment Office − NEO (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) was crucial in achieving this goal.

The platform resulted from a series of strategic decisions.

In 2019, the State Social Protection Fund of under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SSPF) introduced the unique artificial intelligence (AI) driven proactive assignment mechanism for the assignment of social benefits. This self-starting assignment system is a modern approach to delivering a social service that uses big data and technology to identify and reach out to eligible individuals and assign social benefits from a single center to families without them having to visit any institution.

One of the main goals for the Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST), which started to function since 9 May 2019 was an effective management of day-to-day increasing information flow. One of the core tasks of the Agency was to implement effective IT solutions in order to register more than 2,000 citizen daily appeals, set up relevant databases, coordinate with e-databases of other institutions and provide data processing, analysis and reporting.

“No power in the world can destroy thirst for human dignity”, Nelson Mandela.

The Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST Agency) Model of Azerbaijan enabled the effective and rapid transition from the old management system. All processes were comprehensively reformed within the three years.

Human rights and dignity stay at the top of the Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST) of Azerbaijan values. Considering its mission to provide the population with operative and smooth access to labor and social protection services, the Agency developed and implemented social innovations that increased citizen satisfaction. The position of the front office for citizens and mid office for ministerial and third-party organizations allows DOST the best coordination between citizens and service providers.

Analysis of citizens’ appeals revealed that the definite groups of people due to their growing number and specific physical and mental conditions, required different approaches.

The Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST) Volunteer Programme in Azerbaijan is a crucial part of the DOST Agency’s activities and applies a new innovative approach to Government to Citizen (G2C) communication. DOST volunteers act as an intermediary within the Agency and beyond it. The programme is focused on the day-to-day operations at the DOST centres, such as guiding citizens, assisting people with disabilities and older persons, conducting satisfaction surveys, and participating in CSR projects of the Agency.

According to Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art”.

The Law on Social Services establishes that the Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST), hereafter referred to as the Agency, provides home-based social services to elderly people living alone without close relatives and legal representatives. Through home-based social services, social caretakers help elderlies with household routines, cleaning, grocery and medicine shopping, payments etc.

The aim of the e-assistant is to create equal access to state and municipal services for all social groups, enabling everyone to receive services electronically. An e-assistant is an employee of the Local Government Unified Customer Service Centre (Service Centre), to whom the client entrusts to apply for the Latvian State Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) service in his/her own name.

The Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) has made available to customers of its IT system – the ZUS Electronic Services Platform (Platforma Usług Elektronicznych − PUE) – the possibility to self-create electronic documents based on select data from their ZUS accounts. Confirmations that bear a qualified electronic seal of ZUS have the same force as ZUS paper certificates, and can be used in the processes of other institutions.

To help refugee families integrate and facilitate their access to services while breaking down cultural barriers, a series of videos, including testimonials, have been produced on pre-school childcare facilities, out-of-school facilities for schoolchildren, socio-cultural centres and parental support.

Choosing an appropriate legal and social security status when founding a company can be challenging for entrepreneurs who are immersed in their project.

Temporary incapacity for work allowance is the cash benefit paid due to work accidents, occupational diseases, sickness and maternity, and for the periods when the insured is not working under the conditions of Law No. 5510.

In addition, breastfeeding grant is paid as a one-off payment for each live birth to the insured or pensioner (uninsured wife of insured or of pensioner).

The Proactive Disability Payments Mechanism of the Agency for Sustainable and Operational Social Security (DOST) of Azerbaijan simplifies the rights of disabled citizens by eliminating the need for explicit requests and paper-based documentation. The mechanism automatically identifies disabled citizens’ entitlement, verifies their information, and, if eligible, calculates and assigns the relevant social benefit or pension. This approach ensures a citizen-centric process, removing the requirement for citizens to initiate requests and simplifying access to vital services.

To make handling international situations easier for employers, the Finnish Centre for Pensions (Eläketurvakeskus – FCP) has designed a service that allows employers to find out what contributions they must pay to Finland for an employee who comes to work in Finland or goes abroad to work. By answering certain questions employers get guidelines for their situation.

In 2020–2021, the State Social Protection Fund under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Azerbaijan (hereafter the Fund) initiated the optimization policy of the corporate governance framework pertaining to social security in Azerbaijan, which represents a pivotal undertaking aimed at refining and streamlining the operational dynamics of the social security apparatus. This initiative involves a comprehensive optimization strategy designed to elevate the efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance of the existing social security governance.

The key objectives of the portal are to provide comprehensive information about social protection entitlements and benefits, enable continuous monitoring of labour, employment, and social protection rights, and offer efficient and proactive services to users. To achieve these objectives, the “e-sosial” portal adopts a user-friendly approach based on the “one-stop shop” principle.

In Kazakhstan, as part of the digitalization of the social and labour sphere, an Electronic labour exchange (hereinafter ‒ ELE) has been created, which is a single digital employment platform that provides opportunities for job search and assistance in personnel selection. ELE creates modern conditions for the involvement of the population in productive employment, enables citizens to find a job, and employers to select the necessary personnel.

Towards the end of 2018, the Auxiliary Unemployment Benefits Fund (Caisse auxiliaire de paiement des allocations de chômage – CAPAC) introduced a number of IT modules using deep learning aimed first at improving its quality control on unemployment file compilation activities and the payment of unemployment benefits; and second, at increasing the productivity of staff engaged in this work. The results are only recent but are excellent, with very low levels of investment and very short development cycles.

The growth of domestic work in private homes, a sector responsible for the creation of many jobs, is a significant economic development that meets some of life’s most basic needs child care, elder care or more vulnerable group (particularly those in situations of dependency, disability or illness), helping people to grow old in their own homes, and even reconciling one’s family life and professional life.

The overall goal of Sweden’s Federation of Unemployment Insurance Funds (Sveriges a-kassor) is to provide services that help administer unemployment insurance so efficiently such that no organization other than the current 27 unemployment funds can do it better.

Social security is a complicated and wide-ranging topic that can be difficult to grasp for many of our customers. We often receive feedback from customers criticising the language we use as difficult to understand and telling us about the challenges of completing benefit applications. Based on that feedback, we have taken steps to simplify the language we use and to streamline the applications. One of the ways we have tried to make it easier to discover and interpret information and to complete benefit applications has been to deploy a chatbot.

The Family branch of the National Family Allowances Fund (Caisse nationale des allocations familiales – CNAF) has for several years been engaged in a resolute fight against fraud and error, while pursuing a proactive approach to prevention. Increasingly sophisticated and efficient tools are being used (cross-referencing of computer files, data mining, etc.), and the results of these actions are becoming more significant every year.

The collaborative economy, also known as the sharing economy, is growing rapidly and more and more French people are turning to it, whether as service providers or consumers.

This initiative is targeted at those renting out short-term furnished lets and movable property. It intends to provide a simplified, more accessible way of meeting the new reporting requirements.

Signing up allows an individual to remain in the same social security scheme and benefit from improved social security entitlements.

For the past 10 years the Family Allowances Fund (Caisses d’allocations familiales (CAF)) have been developing and improving paperless services for internet users (caf.fr): on-line benefit applications, access to and monitoring of personal files, electronic mail, access to child-care facilities, entitlement simulation tools, service provider porting to smartphones and tablets, automation of information exchange with partners.

The eKRUS is an IT system of the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (Kasa Rolniczego Ubezpieczenia Społecznego – KRUS) of Poland made available to the public via the Internet, dedicated to people insured with KRUS: farmers, farmers’ spouses and household members subject to social or health insurance, and members of their families reported by KRUS to health insurance.

Collection of contributions that finance social insurance benefits is one of the basic tasks of the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS). Due to financial problems of payers resulting from economic turmoil, pandemics and natural disasters, the reliefs and remissions accompanying the process of collecting contributions have become particularly important in recent years. Forced recovery of debts is very costly for debtors and can result in bankruptcy. ZUS also recovers unduly paid benefits e.g. to non-eligible persons.

In the turbulent, constantly changing environment achieving ZUS' strategic objectives requires (among others) modifying the organizational culture by increasing employee satisfaction. For this purpose, the coherent human resource management system based on the model of competence will be implemented.

The medical devices list included in the Health Application Notification (SUT) are the basis for reimbursing medical devices. In the medical devices list, all the medical devices to be reimbursed are presented. On the other hand, since health service providers define their own medical devices, there is no application standard.  

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (“The Department”) is the largest payment organization in Ireland. It also operates the public employment services and directly funds a wide range of employment programmes and citizen advisory services.