Transcript of the speech of Minister Maxim Topilin at the expanded end-of-year meeting of the Board of the Labor and Social Protection Ministry of the Russian Federation<...>
Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich! Dear participants in the Board meeting!
Last year, 2012, executive authorities of all levels supervising labor, employment and social protection issues carried out a substantial work. We started to implement the directives that the President of the Russian Federation gave in the decrees to the Government of May 7, 2012. Within a short period we drafted program and strategic documents determining further development of the social sphere. In 2012 we attained positive results in the majority of basic social development areas: the demographic situation improved, real incomes of the population grew, real salaries increased and unemployment reduced.
Allow me to focus on fundamental areas of the Ministry’s work this year, 2013.
Speaking of demography, last year we achieved the highest demographic indicators in the history of modern Russia. Nearly 1.9 million children were born in the country, and the Russian population grew by more than 300,000 persons. Meanwhile, the natural decrease in the population was practically reduced to zero, only 2,600 persons. We had not had such an indicator for 20 years. We also had a good result in the beginning of this year. Almost 302,000 children were born in January-February, which was 2.5% more than in the corresponding period of 2012.
I would like to emphasize that the Government continues to propose and introduce measures of social support to families with children. A new program was drafted last year and enacted on January 1, 2013. This is a program of support to regions with difficult demographic situations, which start paying allowances for third children, as Dmitry Anatolyevich has said. More than 3,000 families with children have received the allowances that have been approved for them. I kindly request constituents of the Russian Federation to intensify these efforts. Also, I would like to stress that the total monthly allowance per family in three years will stand at approximately 250,000 rubles on the Russian Federation’s average. This is comparable with the amount of the maternity capital at the moment when we first established it several years ago. Certainly, we realize that the reducing number of women of fertile age will result in a certain drop in the birth prospective but we must retain the rates of growth of the total birth ratio and cushion these circumstances. Regional demographic programs are bound to be our main instruments. The Ministry has drafted recommendations for constituents of the Russian Federation and after they are discussed at the Government, the programs will be shortly delivered to regions.
Also, I would like to note that we continue to elaborate proposals on further development of instruments to foster the birth rate. First of all, we are considering issues of continuation and improvement of the maternity capital program, which ends in 2016 in accordance with the law. We believe that these measures should be diversified depending on the demographic situation in a particular region.
We are also considering an increase of the qualifying period, which is included when the labor pension is calculated. The period does not exceed three years now, which means that only 1.5 years count for each of the two children. We propose to consider the possibility of an increase of this period, in order to shift to programs of support to families with three children. According to our estimates, the measures will allow us to increase the number of third and further children by 35,000-40,000 per year.
A key objective in the labor relations for the near future will be to implement the Government resolutions on the increase in salary of certain categories of public sector employees.
Our task this year is to complete the elaboration of all normative documents jointly with the ministries of healthcare and education, and this work needs to be done together with regions. Basic normative documents have been prepared, but they need the final touch. This applies to payment norms, differentiation of salaries and coordination of roadmaps with regions. In the area of the Ministry’s responsibility, we finished just a few days ago coordination of all roadmaps with the constituents in the part of higher salaries and shift to the effective contract for social protection services and social workers. We also continue to coordinate the work pertaining to healthcare and education with colleagues from federal ministries.
In our opinion, the question of the extremely high differentiation of salaries, approximately up to 16 times, becomes very important today. We have started to regulate these issues at public sector organizations, and the Government has approved relevant normative acts. I would like to offer our social partners who are present here to focus on these issues when drafting the general agreement we have begun and undertake a commitment – both employers and trade unions – to think within the framework of the implementation of the new general agreement about instruments of lowering the differentiation of salaries in the commercial sector.
A major task in the payroll sphere is the elaboration of proposals on the phased increase of the minimal salary. We are pondering on these decisions jointly with a special working group and the State Duma. In our opinion, the problem can be resolved no earlier than in 2018. We should set guidelines and plan the tempo of the increase of the minimal salary until 2018.
There was a difficult but constructive dialog with social partners at the initial stage of work on professional standards, and Dmitry Anatolyevich has mentioned that, as well. We expect larger activity of professional communities and employers. The preparatory stage is complete, and normative documents, professional standard models and qualification levels have been released. Now, before this summer, I hope we will start posting and discussing first documents on the issue.
Labor safety and reduction of industrial accidents remain a very serious problem. These indicators have reduced by almost a third for the past seven years but the industrial accident rate remains rather high in the country and 4-5 times exceeds the industrial accident rates in foreign countries, with which we regularly make the comparison. There are very significant reserves and in the course of the pension reform we should draft a key law awaited by employers and trade unions, the draft law on the evaluation of work places. We are already discussing it, the concept of this draft law, and we are due to coordinate main provisions of this draft law in the next few months (April-May). Its quality is essential for compensations to employees working in hazardous and dangerous environments and early pensions. This is a key draft law we must prepare and submit to the State Duma together with the draft law on 2014-2016 Budget.
Probably, the most difficult task of the last year was to develop the Long-Term Pension System Development Strategy. We held numerous consultations and negotiations with partners. The document has been released, and we are already implementing the strategy. Dmitry Anatolyevich has also said that we are discussing the so-called pension formula. There are plenty of disputes and discussions here too. We, and I would like to stress it, are open to the dialog and, pursuant to the directive of the Prime Minister, are holding an active public discussion.
When transiting to the new pension formula we are planning to encourage legal employment of our citizens and legalization of their labor record and salaries. In our opinion, the future pension should depend on that, so it is extremely important for us to assess all these instruments and mechanisms with our partners, representatives of trade unions and employers.
Further development of mandatory social insurance in case of temporary disability and maternity also has a number of tasks. As I imagine, we have achieved considerable progress in this area. Two years ago the deficit of temporary disability insurance funds neared 100 billion rubles, and this year we intend to have a practically deficit-free budget of the social insurance fund in this sector. This has been achieved with the adoption of several laws, which amended the procedure of endorsement of temporary disability allowances and intensified the interaction between the Social Insurance Fund and the insurers. We think we have achieved rather good results.
The Social Insurance Fund will also accomplish pilot projects in eight regions this year. The point is to shift to payment of temporary disability and other allowances not via the employer but directly from the Social Insurance Fund, i.e. shift from the offset principle to normal insurance. Regarding results of these pilot projects we will report to the Government on our further activity in this field.
Since 2012 authorities of the Russian Federation constituents have been implementing the state employment policy under new circumstances. Meanwhile, constituents of the Russian Federation were entrusted with financing of measures of the active policy; that became their own function. We are trying to do energetic monitoring of the events in regions, and I have to say that some regions did not display the due attitude to this task. In some regions the financing of active employment programs were reduced alongside with the quality of services provided. I request constituents of the Russian Federation to be more thorough when implementing these tasks. The fact that our unemployment rate has reduced to the minimal should not make us feel relaxed; we must be prepared for any turn of events and support employment services and develop active programs of support to unemployed citizens and not only unemployed. The Government has submitted the draft laws to the State Duma, which stipulate employment services to, say, senior citizens, which means the range of employment services will bу broaden.
Dmitry Anatolyevich set in his speech the task of assisting disabled persons with their search for employment. Each year, 2013, 2014 and 2015, we should create 14,200 jobs for persons with disabilities, and the Ministry has drafted all the methodological documents, all the program documents and conveyed them to regions. We are giving explanations to all constituents of the Russian Federation and would like regions to fulfill these programs actively. Besides, I would like to call your attention to the fact that the programs need to be implemented in close cooperation with representatives of Russian societies of persons with disabilities; otherwise we will be simply unable to attain the results we have planned.
I would like to say that the level of employment of persons with disabilities remains low. Only up to 30% of persons with disabilities in the able-bodied age are working, so the number of jobs provided by our programs falls extremely short the demand. We propose to start – with due account of the experience accumulated in the performance of this program – the elaboration of proposals to extend it from 2016; we must start preparing right now.
As to our work in the regulation of recruitment of foreign labor force in the Russian Federation – the situation is such that contributions to the Social Insurance Fund and the Mandatory Health Insurance Fund are not paid for foreign workers. This means that the cost of labor force for employers is much smaller if foreign workers are employed. We are drafted a set of laws, which will balance the situation. We think that the cost of labor force to employers must be equal and there must be no differentiation. We have practically coordinated the approaches with all ministries and I hope that within the next few months the laws will be drafted and discussed with social partners. Social partners are taking part in this work, as well.
As to social protection, I would like to stress that the Government has just, only a few days ago, submitted to the State Duma a draft law on fundamentals of providing social services to the population. True, we had been working on that draft law for a rather long time because we tried to have the maximally close discussion with all of our partners. It was repeatedly discussed on regional floors, with public organizations and representatives of charity organizations. There were many stages in the discussion and, in my opinion, the law is good enough. I think that we will certainly continue to improve it during the debate at the State Duma, and amendments will be introduced and proposed, but we intend to adopt this draft law this year, so that regions could use it starting from next year.
The draft law stipulates new mechanisms of work with citizens, transfer to individual needs programs, public-private partnership and a possibility of involvement of the non-governmental sector in social services.
Also, targeting the development of this area, we are drafting together with colleagues from other ministries laws to amend the Tax Code and land laws and to bolster private investments in social services. I believe this should be a primary area of our work because the population of the Russian Federation, and this is not a secret, will be aging, the number of senior citizens will be growing, and it will be extremely difficult to render quality services to our citizens without public-private partnership.
As I have already said we have finished coordination of roadmaps with constituents of the Russian Federation on the increase in salaries of social workers and the sector reform. In our estimates, on average, salaries of social workers will grow by approximately 25% in 2013. Certainly, figures will vary from one region to another because the starting positions differ, but we are supposed to reach the correlation of about 50% to the average salary in regions by the end of this year. We start from 35%, so the increase will be substantial and I request all regions to properly consider this work. We understand that budgets of some constituents have not allocated funds for these purposes, but the work goes on and we are mulling over the issue with the Finance Ministry, so I think we will definitely fulfill this task.
I would also like to call attention to the fact that we have drafted a law, and it has been submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation. It establishes the right of constituents of the Russian Federation to render support to citizens with due account of their incomes. Regions have no such legal right at present: constituents act at their free will but there is no unity, uniformity here. The law has been drafted and will be presented to the State Duma soon.
Speaking of social support and services to persons with disabilities, I would like to say that we ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities last year. That was a keynote event of last year. We have practically drafted a federal law, which in fulfillment of the convention will balance federal laws with the norms of the UN Convention. These are amendments to 34 federal laws. We expect it to be submitted to the Government this fall and then be submitted to the State Duma. I would like to call attention of constituents of the Russian Federation to the fact that we have asked them to review their laws in this context. We have not received normal answers to our question, so I ask you to pay attention to balancing regional laws in conformity with the Convention. We are ready to offer methodological help. Our approaches expressed in the draft law I have already mentioned are sent to you and you may use them when amending your legislation.
Next year will be the key year in the fulfillment of the Accessible Environment program. Dmitry Anatolyevich has said that we performed the pilot projects. We drafted all the necessary documents, approaches to the formation of accessibility maps, approaches to the formation of facility passports. All the documents of the Accessible Environment program, which are the foundation of work in regions, are ready.
The next years, 2014 and 2015, are the years in which the budget allocates 9 billion rubles for co-funding regional programs. Resources have never been assigned for this sphere in such amounts before. I would like constituents of the Russian Federation to be very meticulous when drafting their programs, which will be the ground for federal budget co-financing.
Let me say a few words about the reform of the medical-social examination system. We have practically completed within the framework of the Accessible Environment program the drafting of normative documents, which change the system of acknowledgement of the disability level and introduce the so-called letter codes based on international classification. We have also sent these documents to our entities, the medical-social examination service. We set the task, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to transfer to new classifications, which will be much more transparent and much more convenient for the people. The questions you have set to us from the point of view of lesser number of appeals from citizens, so that citizens have no questions about fairness in the recognition of disability… We believe we will achieve a positive result in this area. Besides, I would like to call attention to the fact that we were doing this work in direct contact with Russian societies and only after Russian societies told us that our approaches were correct and the methods we had tested in a number of regions (also in three pilot regions) brought a positive result, only then we started to promote that experiment across the Russian Federation. I believe that we interact more positively with the people who have found themselves in such a situation.
Dear meeting participants! Workers of our industries regard decrees of the President of Russian Federation of May 7, 2012, and the Fundamentals of the Activity of the Government of the Russian Federation until 2018 as main program documents for our future work. Large practical work and adoption of a significant number of documents on the federal but mostly on the regional level are ahead.
We plan to draft 27 federal laws in 2013 regarding modernization of the pension system, development of labor laws, labor safety, social insurance and social protection. I am hopeful about close cooperation. We gain a lot from proposals of regions and we will carry on our work in the same way.
Thank everyone present in this hall for the work done last year! Thank you for your attention.
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