National Conference "Improvement of financing mechanisms of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs to support the development of social protection services in local self-government units." held in Belgrade

The National Conference "Improving the financing mechanisms of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs to support the development of social protection services in local self-government units" was held in Belgrade. The conference was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, the Provincial Secretariat for Social Protection, the Republic and Provincial Institute for Social Protection, local self-government units, centers for social work, community service providers, as well as five residential institutions in the process transformations. Special emphasis was placed on the mechanism of dedicated transfers and its improvement.

Slađana Marković Stojanović, acting assistant minister for social protection, she pointed out that the service providers at the local level are the pillar of the social protection system.

"Social protection is not only the payment of cash benefits, but much more than that. The dedicated transfer provided by the Ministry from 2016 to 2024 was close to 45 million euros, and this is money used by local governments to improve and implement services at the local level. The common goal is for social protection services at the local level to be equally developed." - pointed out Slađana Marković Stojanović.

Gordana Milovanović, leader of the team implementing the project "Improvement of the social protection system and preparation for the ESF" - worth 2.3 million euros, financed by the EU (IPA 2020) and co-financed by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, emphasized that all activities will be carried out in accordance with standards and examples of good practice from EU member states. "The general goal of the project is to modernize and improve the social protection system by ensuring the effectiveness of social inclusion policies, establishing regulatory mechanisms, deinstitutionalization and development of services in the community." she concluded. The project of technical support to the Ministry is complex, it started in May 2023 and will last until May 2026.

Vladimir Zafirović, head of the Service for the Preparation and Implementation of Projects at the Permanent Conference of Cities and Municipalities, also addressed the audience and presented the project "Support to sustainable social protection services in the community and inclusion policies at the local level", which is complementary to the Technical Support project.

Jelena Pešić Zarić, independent advisor for research at the Republic Institute for Social Protection, spoke about the importance of monitoring and reporting on social protection services. "The main goal of monitoring and reporting is to provide data on services at the local level, which provide empirical evidence on the ways of functioning of social protection services and on the basis of which it is possible to improve the policies and practices of service providers.  The quality of services is constantly improved and the licensing process is closely monitored. The number of licensed service providers is growing from 2013 to 2023, and the number of users is also growing. The largest number of services are available to the elderly population (about 56%), and the number of users has increased by as much as 127% since 2016! The most available services are help at home and a personal companion for the child." - said Pešić Zarić.

Zoran Vesić, an expert on the financial aspects of the process of deinstitutionalization and development of services in the community, presented models for improving the financial mechanisms of the Ministry in the process of supporting the development of social protection services.

He gave an overview of the use of dedicated transfers, from the establishment of this mechanism in 2016 until today. In his presentation, he presented the representation and distribution of services, of which the leading services are help at home (75%) and personal companion of the child (56%), as he pointed out. "It is interesting that in the period between 2019 and 2021 there was no increase in the number of services financed from dedicated transfers, their number even decreased. This clearly indicates that dedicated transfers are primarily used to finance existing services and not to introduce new ones," he said. Vesić identified the main obstacles in the implementation of dedicated transfers, based on extensive analysis. Drafting of a proposal for a new Regulation on dedicated transfers is underway, which will, among other things, include a proposal to abolish the ranking of the development of municipalities, based on which financial resources were allocated until now, as a criterion, bearing in mind that data from 2014 is used, which are no longer an indicator of the real situation.

The general goal of the Project is to improve the effectiveness of social inclusion policies, in order to encourage equal opportunities and active participation of people from the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. The specific goal is to modernize the social protection system in order to improve non-institutional protection and timely access to quality and sustainable social protection services provided in the community. The project holder is the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, while the Contracting Body is the Department for Contracting and Financing of Programs from the European Union, Ministry of Finance, and it is implemented by the NIRAS and EY consortium. The project aims to improve the institutional processes of social protection through active support of the application of good practices from EU countries, in accordance with the Pillar of Social Rights of the European Union.