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Description of Project:
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The project consists of two components.
- The first component co-finances the scaling up of two targeted programs (the Ajutor Social Program and targeted Heating Allowances), while supporting the consolidation and downsizing of other benefit programs.
- The second component finances investments to strengthen the basic architecture of the social assistance system, with a focus on the Ajutor Social Program.
The project is organized around three results areas:
- Improved Equity by increasing Coverage and maintaining Targeting Accuracy: expanding the Ajutor Social Program to cover at least 20 percent of population in the poorest quintile (up from a baseline of 14.3 percent in 2010), while ensuring that the targeting accuracy remains above 65 percent of the Ajutor Social benefits going to those in the poorest quintile;
- Increased Allocative Efficiency: spending on categorical benefits reduced by 30 percent of the pre-reform level;
- Enhanced Administrative Efficiency, Governance and Transparency: turn-around time for processing Ajutor Social applications, including verification and eligibility decisions, reduced to 15 days; and losses from irregularities in the Ajutor Social benefits are reduced by 30 percent.
This assignment is focused on the third result area and has an objective of improving administrative efficiency of the social assistance delivery. Currently, the administration of the Ajutor Social and accompanying targeted Heating Allowance is cumbersome for the client and the MLSPF has little control over the quality of administration at the local level. The MLSPF lacks systems to oversee benefits administration at the local level and ensure uniformity of standards for local service delivery.
The project would develop service delivery standards and new business model for raion Social Assistance Departments (local SADs) for administration of Ajutor Social Program and accompanying Heating Allowance at the local level. These service delivery standards would be an important input to the performance-based financing mechanism that the GOM plans to develop as a part of a broader public finance management reform agenda. The project builds on the MIS that is being developed under the MLSPF leadership and includes implementation of the second stage information system development, including extending the MIS with new business functionalities and adding new technological improvements to the system.
While the performance information developed should not have straightforward link to the administrative budget allocations to SADs, it however should allow the Ministry connect it, generally loosely, with planning and managerial actions, so that budget decisions are informed by performance measurement in addition to other sources of information such as experience, qualitative information and political priorities. The systematic use of performance budgeting and the emphasis in making performance information public and available in a user-friendly way, constitute necessary foundations for improving levels of accountability and responsiveness.
Thus the objective of this task is to improve service delivery by:
- Strengthening client focus of the services;
- Finding out what clients consider to be critical aspects of services provided by/through SAD and service delivery;
- Giving managers the flexibility needed to respond to client needs;
- Developing proper incentives for service providers to maintain quality of services; and
- Monitoring and analyzing SADs performance against realistic goals and standards
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Services Provided:
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Task 1 – Service Delivery standards development
- Review services to be provided to the clients and benefits clients are entitled to receive;
- Define quality of services the client is expected to receive including fairness, choice of language, openness
- Define access and timing standards for service provision broken down by stages where applicable (this must entail administrative services and procedures, service delivery including client evaluation, first contact, follow up contact, waiting times, response times for appeals and complaints)
- Estimate norms of number of social workers per population adjusted for particular characteristics of rayon (urban/rural, distance, poverty level)
- Based on the caseload per employee standards, cost the service provision and define indicative cost estimates
- Design dissemination mechanism so the clients would be aware of the service standards they should expect
- Suggest complaint resolution mechanism to allow clients complaint when they feel standards are not met
- Suggest mechanism to ensure service integration with other social assistance providers
Task 2 – Business Model revision
- Conduct functional review of current business model/s in SADs and identify changes required to meeting service delivery standards;
- Suggest improvements in the business processes in order to ensure cost-efficient delivery of services;
- Define reporting requirements to enable monitoring of SADs` compliance with service delivery standards and other performance information (performance management reports) to be submitted to the Ministry and used for decision making.
- Suggest action plan on transition to the new Business Model that ensures smooth transition without disruption to client services.
Task 3 – Functional Requirement to MIS Module
- Define data/information that would be collected, processed and analyzed at both local and central level to satisfy reporting requirements described in task 2 above;
- Review existing data and data collection systems, identify gaps and modifications which would be needed;
- Develop functional requirements describing new business processes;
- Develop a Terms of Reference style input for the Ministry to procure the MIS module that would support the system starting 2014.
Task 4 – Change management plan
- Conduct a conference/seminar to expose stakeholders to the concepts, approaches and good practices/international experience of performance management in public sector and introduce them to new approaches proposed for Moldova social assistance system;
- Assess training needs to implement the social delivery standards;
- Prepare change management plan based on the needs assessment
- Conduct a 3-5 days training course for the central ministry staff and SADs management staff;
- Conduct a 5 days training of trainers /course for SAD front-line staff.
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