132
J
continue to be valid.
Since considerable changes
in
social conditions may take place before the end of the planning period, the planner should always be in a position to adapt the short-term objectives of the plan and their implementation to these changes. For this,
he should be able to avail himself of an ad hoc set of social indicators which would show him that changes have occurred which call for a revision of the plan.
the
Reporting on progress in the implementation of the plan in the social sector may be a difficult task in view of the complexity of the different measures concerned. The situation will be further complicated by the possible diversity in the legal nature of the public intervention with certain measures being obligatory and others only indicative ot the development preferred. The introduction of preventive measures being of great importance for
performance of the income compensation sector, mutual co-ordination of progress reports will be required. On the whole, however, reporting on the operations of the institutional Machinery required for carrying out any given social security measure will not present any major problems. The real difficulty will be encountered in observing and evaluating with a reasonable degree of precision any progress achieved in meeting the social objectives of the system for, in this respect, new techniques will have to be forged along the way.
B
Present trends in social security planning in some European countries
The above blue-print for social security planning, which is based on Some relatively new concepts that have emerged in the course of recent years, is far from being applied in practice in any of the market economy countries.
A recent survey undertaken by the International Social Security Association has shown that, in
most of these countries, only the first timid steps are being taken towards systematic planning in this sector.1 Neither the concepts nor the techniques to be used in this process meet with the unanimity of experts working in the field and in certain quarters doubts are being expressed as to the feasibility of such an enterprise. On
the whole, however, the need for planning is being recognised because, more tha n in any other field of social intervention, the incoherences resulting from the piece-meal development of most social security schemes become manifest and the advantages of a general rethinking of the system obvious.
Among the countries which have adopted the system of national development plans, with the exception of France, the inclusion of social security in the existing planning processes goes back no further than 1970. In countries such as Belgium, the legal and, to some degree, also the institutional set-up is already in place to provide for the inclusion of social security in national planning but both concepts and methods to be used are still at the stage of research.
In Belgium the Planning Office was set up and the scope of planning extended to social matters in July 1970; the Office is directly responsible to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Economic Affairs and receives directives from a Cabinet Committee of Ministers with responsibilities in the social field. At present, the Ministry of Social Welfare draws up medium-term forecasts relating to the operations of different social security administrations published in the "General Report on Social Security". In 1969, PPBS techniques were introduced in the Ministry and the impact of these should be shown in future reports. Intensive research into the development of a planning methodology is currently under way and the Office of the Plan counts on the development of social indicators to be able to define, for planning purposes, what is referred to as "social aspirations" of the population.
In France planning is already under way and the first practical experience available. It was only with the Sixth Plan, covering the period from 1971-75, that the French planners covered the whole field of social transfers, abandoning the narrow institutional criteria which were used in the past. The Office of the Plan is directly responsible to the Prime Minister and the body which plays a prominent consultative role in social security planning is the Social Benefits Commission, composed of representatives of ministries having responsibilities in this field, and
1 See "Current Issues in Social Security Planning: (Studies and Research, No. 4) ISSA, Geneva, 1973, 162 pp.
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