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of interested social partners. In the preparation of the Sixth Plan the Commission worked on the hypothesis that the growth of expenditure on social security benefits, which took place during the previous planning period, would be maintained. At the same time, according to the policy orientation approved by the Parliament, the Commission was asked to present proposals aiming at an improvement in the minimum benefits for old persons, the creation of special assistance for the disabled, a reform of the system of family allowances within the framework of a family policy and a reduction in the expenditure on sickness insurance.
The French planners are using two models for the preparation of the plan: a macro-economic model, operated by the National Statistical Institute, and a special model for the social security sector, operated by the Projections Office of the Ministry of Finance. The results of changes in social security legislation are studied by means of ad hoc surveys. First experience with the existing planning procedures seems to point towards the need for taking a broader view of the area of impact of social security operations, first, to cover not only social transferS effected by social security institutions, but the whole system of flows of social income affecting redistribution and, second, to see the impact of social security contributions on different types of households in relation to the impact of direct and indirect taxation.
Among the countries which do not follow the path of periodic national economic plans, the Federal Republic of Germany has introduced in recent years important innovations preparing the way for a planned development of social security. An annual social budget is prepared by the Government, where social security operations are presented not only from the point of view of different institutions active in this field but also from the functional point of view, cutting across the institutional barriers; the review of the current year's operations is accompanied
by short- and medium-term forecasts. No firm structure for social security planning has yet been developed but a consultative body for the discussion of social policy in this sector is already in existence. It is to be expected that the publication of these annual social budgets will prepare the way for a subsequent introduction of regular periodical plans.
In many other countries, particularly in Great Britain and Scandinavia, the
planning of reforms in the social security field
is entrusted to the ministries responsible for its administration and the actual task of preparing the introduction of any particular measure lies with the staff of the competent branches. In the British Department of Health and Social Security, а central planning unit was established in 1971. Its functions are, broadly, to undertake assessment of long- term trends over all the Department's responsibilities and to assist in the work defining long-term objectives and of formulating plans to meet them. This, again, can be interpreted as a positive step
towards establishing structures on which systematic social security planning could be based should the country desire to follow this path.
cf
conditions of nevertheless, The decisive concerns the future. Three
pre-established
It is obvious that we are still a long way from the optimum social security planning outlined in the first part of this paper; general development seems to point in the direction we have indicated. issue which seems to emerge from the survey of the present situation way in which social planning is likely to develop in the possibilities may be envisaged: (a) it will be forced to enter the patterns of the economic plans, where the determination of social objectives will simply be dictated by economic exigencies;
(b) the specific requirements of the social sector will bring about the creation of a specific theory of social planning to be subsequently co-ordinated with economic planning; and (c) the failure cf economic planning to guarantee the achievement of desirable social goals due to the neglect of social aspects of development will lead to a complete rethinking of the theory of societal planning based on an integrated approach.
IV.
PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL SECURITY PLANNING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Having surveyed the problems of social security planning in some industrial- ised countries in Western Europe, we must now examine to what extent they are relevant to the situation in the developing countries and what lessons, if any, these countries may learn from the European approach to this question.
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