Risk management is the process of identifying, analysing, accepting, mitigating or transferring uncertainty in investment decisions. Fund managers apply risk management by analysing and attempting to quantify the potential loss of an investment and then acting accordingly.

Institutions are being transformed thanks to the integration of new technologies. This vision represents a corporate change with a social impact, reducing costs, simplifying processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

Article 12 of Law No. 5508 on the Promotion, Protection of Maternity and Support for Breastfeeding establishes that maternity allowance should be paid to employed women by the social security scheme of Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS). This amount is equivalent to 100 per cent of her salary at the time of delivery, and is paid for the prescribed months of rest. This used to be given to women in a single payment.

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.

The issue of population growth and social security planning is one of the biggest challenges facing governments today, and is a key part of a good social security system that instils confidence in its members.

The Retirement and Pension Fund for Employees of Banks and Related Institutions (Caja de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados de Bancos y Afines) (Bank Fund, hereinafter) is in constant communication with its members. It therefore continuously updates its databases, in order to have a better understanding of members’ current realities, experiences and needs.

Digital transformation is happening in institutions through the integration of new technologies. This vision represents an institutional and social change, optimizing available resources, reducing costs, shortening processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

Good practice in health – service quality.

As health-care systems have evolved to become more complex and due to the resultant increase in patients coming to harm in health care settings, patient safety has emerged as a health-care discipline.

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).

The Actuarial Advisory Office (Asesoría Actuarial) of the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) carried out an actuarial valuation of the Common Retirement and Pension Fund (Fondo Común de Jubilaciones y Pensiones). The valuation looks to comply with international best practices and observe the guidelines and standards of the International Standards of Actuarial Practice 2 (ISAP 2), and the ISSA-ILO Guidelines on Actuarial Work for Social Security, with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Like most of the world’s countries, Paraguay has adopted lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These steps taken by the government have impacted the productive sector, leading to mass suspensions of employment contracts for persons insured with the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) of Paraguay.

Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión de Social – IPS) used to make sick leave payments at its administrative offices, which had associated administrative costs and meant beneficiaries had to visit the IPS service counter in person.

In early 2020 with the arrival of Covid pandemic and Ireland in lockdown, the DSP Dublin Regional Team had to consider how to innovate and develop new ways of providing services so as to ensure the Department remained relevant and could continue to deliver services for employers and jobseekers. This resulted in a rapid move to providing new digital services online.

The Treatment Benefits scheme operated by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (“The Department”) provides dental, optical and audiology services and medical appliances to qualified people. In late 2017, following suspension for a number of years, the Irish government restored these Treatment Benefits to all eligible citizens and extended them to self-employed contributors for the first time.

India has a federal structure of governance, where health is a provincial subject and social security and labour are in the concurrent list. Healthcare and cash compensation for employment injury in the formal sector are provided by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) while the pension and provident fund are provided by the Employees Provident Fund. The employees of factories and establishments in the formal sector are entitled to social security benefits through the ESIC scheme.

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.

The extension of the ESI scheme was not progressing at the desired pace. In 2010 the threshold coverage level was reduced from 20 to 10 employees through an amendment to the Act. Moreover, in sparsely populated areas many establishments could not be covered even with the threshold of 10 employees.

State Governments are instrumental in delivering healthcare services under the ESI Act. An enabling provision was inserted in the Act to establish a body at the State level to address certain operational issues.

A committee, entitled Medical Services and Medical Education (MSME), was constituted to explore various options to improve operational efficiency.

The Employees  Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India provides social security benefits to its members in terms of provident fund and old age pensions under the Employees' Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (referred to as the Act hereafter), enacted by the Parliament of India, which extends to the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

This submission outlines the delivery of a Claim, Payment and Entitlement Web Service to Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) from the Department of Social Protection (DSP).

The inefficiency and complexity of various processes involving a multitude of forms and returns and the resulting difficulty in delivery of online services to over 60 million contributory subscribers and over 200 million accounts, was a big challenge for the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) of India since some time back. The sheer size of stakeholders heightened the need of digitization.

To ensure adequacy and improve the quality of social security benefits the following actions have been taken:
 

Worldwide, evidence shows that acute common health problems can progress to a state of chronic disability, job loss and dependence on costly long-term illness benefits. In Ireland, this has contributed to a significant increase since 2000 in the number of illness benefit recipients.

The ESIC has taken the following measures to proactively improve the scheme:
 

In 2011, during a period when unemployment increased by over 300%, delivery of employment and welfare services was fragmented across three organizations.

Unemployed customers dealt separately with each organization. As a result customer service processes were inefficient and employment outcomes for clients were poor. Intreo was the response to this challenge, involving:

• The minimum amount of monthly dependants' benefit payable to dependants of a deceased insured person has been prescribed as 1,200 Indian Rupees (INR) a month.
• Long-term benefits (permanent disablement benefit and dependant's benefit) have been linked to the cost of living index.

ICT has been used to improve compliance, and to implement on-line registration of employers and employees, and make benefit payments.
Forms and the procedure for benefit rate calculations have been simplified.

The new systems and procedures resulted in savings of about 25 per cent of Branch Office staff which could be utilized in other information and communication technology (ICT) related work during its transition phase.

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) undertook a number of actions which led to the following measures being introduced to extend coverage:

It was, therefore, decided that the scheme should be phased out. Existing participants retained their entitlements, but no further applications were taken. Had the scheme been abolished entirely, an additional 11,000 people would have been counted amongst the unemployed.

Research has shown that the prevention of long-term unemployment is important from both economic and social perspectives. Long-term unemployed individuals suffer from skill erosion and encounter difficulty in re-entering employment. In the wider economy, welfare payments and lost revenue mean that long-term unemployment entails substantial financial costs.