The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (MLSW) has launched today in Public Consultations the Concept Document for Social and Family Services. During the media conference, Minister of MLSW Mr. Skender Reçica said that this Concept Document has a major impact on the lives of citizens, but in particular for the vulnerable groups of this society.
“The first reform cycle we have undertaken in many areas concludes with this concept paper through which we aim to reorganize social and family services, based on best international practices and the European Voluntary Quality Framework for Social Services, the minister said.
The minister said the decentralization of social services has faced difficulties due to the lack of funding for these services, namely the lack of a specific social services grant. In this regard, he said that at the last meeting of the government was approved the Concept Finance Document of Local Government funded by the Ministry of Finance and which provides for additional budget for social and family services at the municipal level.
Further on, addressing the problems and challenges identified regarding the provision of social and family services, the minister mentioned the non-definition of competencies for service delivery, lack of citizen information on services, monitoring and limited inspection of these services and funding insufficient from the central and local level, as some of the main problems.
With the approval of this concept paper for providing social and family services, the minister said that the goal is to accurately determine the responsibilities and competencies of central and local level institutions and providers of these services, improve access to services by placing them closer to citizens, classification and organization of services, quality increase and sustainable financing of these services.
The public consultation process starts from today and lasts until 5 December, 2018. The Minister invited all interested parties to submit their comments and suggestions in order to have a concept document as good and practicable as possible.