From September 1, recipients of social benefits are waiting for important innovations

From the fall of 2022, new measures of social support should be assigned without certificates – that is, automatically, immediately after citizens have the right to them. That is, in order to receive the due payment, it will be possible to do without filing an application at all. The Ministry of Labor promises that by the end of 2023, all benefits and social payments that are accrued from the federal, regional and municipal budgets will become proactive. Experts commented on the pros and cons of the new social approach of MK.

By the end of 2022, 90% of all social benefits and payments will be provided proactively – without certificates, the ministry promised. Those in need of support measures will become known from the unified state social security information system (EGISSO). Today, this giant electronic database contains information about citizens who are already receiving assistance from the state. According to the Accounts Chamber, at the beginning of last year there were almost 71 million of them.

Explaining the essence of the September innovation, Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov assured that thanks to this, assistance will become more accessible and will be provided quickly, simply and targeted on the principle of “social treasury”. As an example, the minister cited maternity capital, “which today is issued upon registration of the birth of a child, without the mother’s request.”

According to the plans of the Ministry of Labor, as early as this year, all regional social security authorities will begin not only to post information in the EGISSO, but also to assign benefits and allowances through it. In addition, other departments intend to actively cooperate with EGISSO. In particular, the Federal Tax Service should transfer to it information about Russians with low incomes, about movable and immovable property owned by the corresponding family, which will allow social security authorities to calculate the average per capita income of citizens, to determine their degree of need.

In addition, a function is available in the information system that allows each resident of the country, by entering his data in his personal account, to see all the benefits and benefits that he is entitled to. And this is extremely important, given that today there are about 400 types of social support in the country – federal, regional and municipal, as well as about 30 thousand of their modifications. Citizens simply cannot know about each of them, and can easily get confused about the types of benefits that are intended specifically for their families. Although about 20 million Russians who have given their consent to this, today receive information from the Ministry of Labor about the payments due to them on the website of the State Services. In particular, notifications come about benefits due to citizens in connection with the birth of a child, the establishment of disability or the achievement of retirement age.

Features of the September social innovations “MK” asked experts to comment.

Andrey Loboda, economist, director of external relations at BitRiver:

“The unified state social security information system is becoming the core of the digital social treasury. If the system is debugged to perfection (and it was developed long ago and carefully), then one should count on a big breakthrough in the field of digitalization of social policy and interaction with the population.

More than 70 million Russian citizens receive state assistance – and it is obvious that this figure will grow against the backdrop of geo-economic aggravation. Although, until recently, the “manual” calculation of pensions and other social benefits from the PFR has never failed. If the new system from the beginning of the launch manages to flawlessly identify the data of each recipient of assistance, and it is provided in the shortest possible time, the result of the innovation will be beyond praise. The priority for the relevant authorities will be the prompt identification, search and support of the poor. However, it must be remembered that millions of Russians are still in the “gray” zone, receiving salaries in envelopes and not declaring additional income, for example, from renting out housing. Innovation is unlikely to be able to track unrecorded income. In any case, the automatic search for the poor and the needy will be more accurate, but their number from the point of view of the “smart” system can be significantly reduced. In general, this is a fact: I think the Russians are not as poor as the statistics show us.”

Pavel Utkin, Leading Associate at Parthenon United Legal Center:

“The advantages here are quite obvious – this is less time spent on bureaucracy and obtaining information. All information on those who are entitled to benefits will be uploaded to a separate system, and payments will already be made on it. Applications for benefits also appear to be greatly accelerated due to the lack of need for “roll call” between departments – again, this is a plus of a single information storage system.

Of the minuses, two can be distinguished. Firstly, in any case, the system will be tested and refined for some time. This means that failures and periodic problems with the calculation of payments are possible in it, up to accidental deletion of data from the system. But this is a matter of time and running-in – like with all systems, such “sores” are being finalized upon their discovery. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure the complete security of the personal data of citizens, since if the calculations of the Accounts Chamber are correct, then the USISSO will store data on half of the country’s population. One can imagine how many hacker attacks and illegal intrusions the system will have to repel. So this issue will be extremely important not only at the beginning, but also in the future.”