Text file: 3368.txt
author: ALLOVE
downvotes: 6
end consideration date: 2012-08-03
id: '3368'
number comments: 7
number views: 3456
proposal type: Competent authority response
response: ' Response by the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities

  Thank you for your suggestion on the regulation of social assistance benefits or
  the replacement of benefits by community service and the integration of beneficiaries
  of social assistance benefits into public works.

  With regard to the latter, we would like to clarify that the existing legislation
  (the Law on Protection Benefits and the Law on the Exercise of Rights from Public
  Funds) lays down the conditions for entitlement to cash social assistance.

  The purpose of cash social assistance is to provide the means to meet the minimum
  subsistence needs of life. Therefore, the basis for calculating the amount of cash
  social assistance is the minimum income. The amount of social assistance is then
  determined on the basis of the minimum income, taking into account special circumstances,
  which are defined in the law by means of weights that increase or decrease the amount
  of social assistance.

  We would like to point out in particular that if a recipient of social assistance
  meets all the conditions laid down by law, the Social Work Centre will also prepare
  a plan for the active resolution of social problems, which will set out the rights
  and obligations of the recipient, which may also result in the termination of entitlement
  to social assistance.

  The main purpose of such an arrangement is to involve the recipient of social assistance
  as actively as possible in solving his/her social difficulties and, as a consequence,
  to put an end to the grounds for receiving social assistance as quickly as possible.

  In order to encourage active social assistance, the legislation provides for an
  increase in the amount of social assistance in the form of a so-called work activity
  allowance, which in practice represents a higher weighting for the calculation of
  social assistance.

  As we are aware of the need to actively involve recipients of social assistance
  in programmes that will bring them as close as possible to the labour market and
  provide them with the competences for employment, we envisage the launch of social
  activation programmes in the coming year through European funding, The aim of these
  programmes is to involve recipients of social assistance in order to encourage them
  to take a more active approach to solving their social difficulties and to move
  from being passive recipients of social transfers to the labour market and into
  some form of employment.

  We would also like to stress that the legislation also clearly prescribes the grounds
  for the cessation of the receipt of social assistance, as well as the culpable grounds
  for withdrawal.

  As mentioned above, there are already grounds for more active integration or treatment
  of recipients of social assistance, which we would like to intensify in the future.

  With regard to the possibility of involving recipients of social assistance in public
  works, we would like to point out that vulnerable groups, in particular the long-term
  unemployed, who may also be recipients of social assistance, are one of the target
  groups for inclusion in public works.

  We also want recipients of social assistance to acquire the competences to enter
  the labour market within the framework of social activation programmes and to be
  integrated into the labour market through public works at the end of the social
  activation programmes.'
response date: 2015-11-17
response due date: null
sent date: 2012-07-05
title: Compulsory community service for social assistance recipients
upvotes: 13
url: https://predlagam.vladi.si/predlog/3368
