0003230
C.F. 323
CONFIDENTIAL
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13.
The Green Paper refers to the possibility of scheme members paying additional voluntary contributions to improve their benefit expectations. Care will be needed in working out how these additional contributions should affect benefit rights. The simplest way would be to relate such contributions solely to death and retirement benefits. It may be possible to bring in sickness and injury benefit as well - perhaps by extending the period of payment but this element of the
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scheme is an "extra" and should be kept as simple as possible.
14.
The housing loan facility has been welcomed as a valuable element in the scheme. Further thought, however, will need to be given to (a) rationing applications for loans after the scheme has been running for 5 years (b) the security that will be needed for the loan e.g. a first mortgage on the property (c) safeguards against the member overreaching himsel? by taking out bank loans without revealing the scheme loan and (d) whether the member with a loan should be obliged to remain a contributor to the scheme for a minimum period (perhaps 5 years) after receiving the loan.
e)
15.
Actuarial assessment
It will be desirable to have an early actuarial assessment, or at least indication, before any detailed consultations are held. If it is decided to go ahead with the scheme, there would be advantage in appending an actuarial memorandum to the White Paper, setting out the detailed costings. (This is the usual practice in U.K. White Papers).
Frotecting the value of benefits
16.
If it is ever decided to break the existing link between the public assistance scheme and the welfare allowance scheme (para. 9.9 of the Green Paper), it will be necessary to make separate arrangements to keep the value of the welfare allowances under review so that, in line with the Government's policy, they maintained their real value. For this purpose, it might be simplest to use the same system as for the public assistance scheme.
Administration of social security
a) Responsibility for social security administration
17.
The administration of social security, as well as the formulation of social security policy, is primarily the responsibility of the Sonial Welfare Department. The question arises whether there would be any substantial advantage to be gained from hiving off social security work from the Social Welfare Department to form a new and separate Social Security Department. But it is considered that there would be little to gain and a fair amount to lose from such a move. A separate department would be able to go its own way and perhaps find it easier to develop new forms of organization more suited to social security administration. But it would be a very small department, and creating it might well add to administrative costs because of the duplication of
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