Ministry of Labour and Social Protection launches reform on the expansion of social services
The social assistance system is not effective enough in the fight against poverty and there is currently a territorial inequality of access to these services, says Minister of Labour and Social Protection Alexei Buzu. To this end, a reform has been launched to strengthen and expand social services. In addition, the minimum package of services provided will be financed from the state budget.
Every third child in rural Moldova comes from a poor family, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Interventions by the social assistance system reduce child poverty by only 5%. This rather low number demonstrates the low effectiveness of social assistance services, which calls for new intervention measures, says Labour and Social Protection Minister Alexei Buzu.
According to him, in 15 districts of the Republic of Moldova, more than 40% of people with disabilities do not have access to personal assistance services.
"At the local, district and central level, there is no very clear vision of how to create services, which services are needed in different areas of Moldova. This creates territorial inequality of access to social services and benefits. A third problem concerns the link between the cost of services and their quality. There is a lot of inefficiency or even ill will and lack of integrity in the system. A final and, we believe, the most important problem is the very low pay of my frontline colleagues," said Alexei Buzu.
To strengthen the social protection system, the authorities have launched a reform of the sector. The reform provides for the expansion and improvement of the services provided, the fight against staff turnover and the financing of the minimum package of social services from the state budget, emphasised the chairman of the parliamentary Social Protection, Health and Family Committee, Dan Perciun.
"We are going to expand the minimum package of social services, include more services, in particular special attention to the elderly and children, and increase the number of beneficiaries. We will create nine Territorial Social Welfare Agencies. We plan to develop an information system for social services in the coming years. We are going to increase the pay grade of a social worker with a higher education to the level of a teacher," said Dan Perciun.
Dan Perciun said that the reform is to be implemented within three years and the main provisions it contains will be implemented within a year.
Currently, about 13,000 professionals work in the social assistance system.
