Russian Federation – Access to social rights and services in the Rostov and Krasnodar region
Location: Rostov and Krasnodar (Russian Federation)
Position: Expert on social security issues and on administration and service delivery, free-lance
Duration: June 13th to 14th and June 16th to 17th, 2005
Beneficiary: Council of Europe (DG III – Social Cohesion)
These fact-finding missions were organised by the Council of Europe in the frameworks of the Joint Council of Europe European Commission programme Russia VIII, and aimed at exploring, through visits to service delivery organisations, how existing social rights are delivered and how this delivery can be improved via training and information provision.
The team was comprised of one international expert (Mr. Steven Segaert) and one local expert (Mr. Oleg Shakhnazarov), and was lead by Mr. Alexander Kostanyan, administrative officer at the Council of Europe and later on involved as project manager in the project which was the framework for this mission.
The activities in this mission were organised in two times two days of fact-finding visits (Rostov on June 13th and 14th, Krasnodar on June 16th and 17th).
Visits were organised to delivery centres concerned with employment (unemployment benefits as well as job mediation , centrally as well as locally), pensions (the regions’ central administration where it concerns the payment of pension benefits and a multitude of facilities providing services to pensioners) and social assistance (the regional administration as well as local service points and facilities for residential and semi-residential care). During these visits, the team met with high-level administrators as well as middle management and workers in the field, who invariably offered their enthusiast cooperation and hospitality.
The involvement of both an international and local expert ensured a mix of exogenous views on the issues at hand, and comments complemented by local experiences. The ensuing report benefits from, but is not determined by, detailed background knowledge of social services in Russia, the policy choices involved or the legal framework that supports this policy.
The combined reports contained detailed observations concerning the administration of social services (back-office aspects), the delivery of these services (front-office aspects) and – as a separate topic – concerning unemployment services and job mediation. The recommendations and suggestions made during this and other missions formed the basis for further activities to be implemented in the concerned regions in the framework of a joint programme of co-operation between the Council of Europe and the European Commission.