We Are Starting the Reorganization of Pension Appointment Processes: Zarouhi Batoyan

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia, Zarouhi Batoyan, made the following post on her Facebook page: "We are starting the reorganization of pension appointment processes. Concrete measures have been anchored in the government's action plan aimed at implementing reforms in the sector, including structural changes.

Currently, the functions of appointing and paying a number of monetary benefits planned by pensions, allowances, and social programs are carried out by 51 territorial divisions of the Social Security Service of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. The same body is responsible for both accepting applications and providing consultations, as well as making decisions regarding the appointment and payment of pensions.

This process poses several challenges: a staff member of the territorial division personally serves the citizen while simultaneously carrying out the decision-making function, which implies work requiring different skills and thus takes additional time and resources. The interaction between the decision-making personnel and beneficiaries is risky in terms of the objectivity of decisions made, and the potential presence of risks negatively impacts citizens' trust in the system.

What do we intend to implement?

Starting from August 1, the first phase of reforms will be launched, beginning in the capital. The territorial divisions of the Service in Yerevan will be completely reorganized, and in their place, appointment and service directorates will be formed with their respective departments (back office, front office).

Ten departments of the service directorate will be entrusted solely with serving citizens, accepting applications, and providing consultations, which will allow for improving the citizen service process.

The five departments of the appointment directorate will carry out exclusively the functions of processing applications and making decisions in a centralized manner, which will allow the responsible parties to focus solely on the pension appointment process, consequently increasing work efficiency.

Thanks to the newly implemented software, applications will be randomly distributed among employees, excluding contact between pension-appointing specialists and citizens. As a result, the objectivity of decision-making will increase and the risks of corruption will decrease.

With the reduction of the human factor in the pension appointment process, the transparency of the system will improve, and citizens’ trust in the system will increase.

The service departments will continue to operate at their previous locations, while the appointment departments will be located in a separate centralized office. The next phase of reform will be carried out in the regions by the end of the year."