Research Report
Ⅰ. Background and Purpose of Research
□ The legislative issues on the social welfare
○ to decide the scope of people receiving welfare benefits and the coverage of benefits
○ to determine the way to secure the budget to spend on welfare measures
□ Items to be discussed in addition
○ the organization of welfare administration
○ workforce expansion
○ the renovation of the welfare delivery system
○ the tax system to secure the resources spent on welfare
- this study focused on how the central and local governments share or divide their responsibility of welfare administration, and on the procurement system of funding required for the welfare.
Ⅱ. Current Legal System and Its Problems
□ The types of welfare
○ In our legislation system for social welfare, the types of welfare are as follows: social insurance, public assistance, social welfare service, and other related welfare.
- Social insurance deals with social risks encountered by the people through the method of the insurance to guarantee the health and income of citizens.
- The entry in these kinds of public insurance or social insurance is obligatory, and assumes the elements of public authority.
- The public assistance is aninstitution to maintain the minimum living standard and support independence for the people unable to sustain their living or in difficult economic situations.
- social services support citizens who need help and guidance by providing vocational rehabilitation counseling and other facilities to enable a normal social life.
- other related welfare includes various welfare programs to support people in need to ensure minimum respectable lives as human beings in areas such as health, housing, education, and so on.
□ Constitution guarantees local autonomy
- Constitution guarantees local autonomy, the usual administrative roles limited to the local area should be allocated to the local government, except the responsibilities which cannot be resolved but by central government. Thus, social security or welfare should be the responsibility of local governments.
- when it is undeniable that the local autonomy comes from the national government, we cannot claim that affairs concerning the welfare belong exclusively to local government.
- the rules to allocate duties between central and local governments stipulate reasonably that the central government take the role of planning and coordinating, while local governments perform the duty to implement the planning.
□ In relation to the type of social security system
- Laws stipulate social welfare services as autonomous affairs of local governments.
- Social insurances are administered by the central government by dint of the fact that they are more efficiently administered in the national level, and it is more economical to expand the boundary of the insured in sense of insurance principles.
- Public assistance are considered to have the characteristics as shared affairs in that both central and local government should take charge of its operation so long as they are able to do something for it.
□ Review
○ The National HealthInsurance Act
- Article 2 stipulates that the national health insurance is to be administered by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
- It establishes the National Health Insurance Corporation in order to perform practical tasks.
- Some insurance policies such as employment insurance are operated by the state.
- the fact that there is little room for the local governments to intervene in these kinds of businesses is indisputable.
○ The National Basic Livelihood Security Act
- In the area of public assistance, the National Basic Livelihood Security Act stipulates that both central and local government shall provide aids to the needy individuals.
- The local governments include the Special Metropolitan City Mayor, Metropolitan City Mayors, Do governors, and the heads of Si/Gun/Gu.
- Though there may be some room for tasks related to public assistance to be seen as shared affairs, these tasks are not shared affairs legally, for the Statute stipulates the specific tasks as belonging only to one government.
- The Minister of Health and Welfare decides the important policy matters of the National Basic Livelihood Security such as follows: the minimum cost of livelihood, decision of calculation method for the accepted income, decisions based on salary, the range of eligible person, regional self-help centers.
- The Special Metropolitan City Mayor, Metropolitan City Mayors, Do governors, and the heads of Si/Gun/Gu implements the tasks that has been delegated from laws, and the results are reported to the Minister of Health and Welfare.
Ⅲ. Lessons from Other Countries
□ Anglo-American countries
- operate welfare systems based on liberalism and individualism.
- These countries have the unique characteristics in that the national government assumes only marginal roles, while the market welfare is emphasized more strongly and systematically.
- In these kinds of social security systems, the national government guarantees only a minimum standard for human life.
- The welfare benefits are provided primarily to protect the low-income citizens who depend on the government for their livelihood.
- On the other hand, the government supports the market system by providing subsidies or tax deductibles to private sector welfare organizations.
□ Continental European type of welfare system
- strong tradition of social insurance and family care, or devolves welfare responsibility to the family or kinship.
- The role of the market in welfare provision is suppressed as much as possible.
- So the welfare provision by the market such as private insurance performs a very peripheral role in the welfare system.
- In addition, because it emphasizes family care, social welfare services such as childcare are not developed.
- The government provide for a family member only when the supplementary intervention capacity of family is exhausted.
□ Nordic social democracy countries
- The comprehensive and sweeping responsibility of the government.
- Government responsibility, the individual welfare is regarded as an entity which cannot be priced as a commodity and provided by the family.
- The characteristics of social democracy is that government does not pursuit the equality of minimum standard of desire, like other countries, but seeks to build the welfare state which promotes the equality in the highest level of living, based on the notion that welfare is the right of citizens.
- This means that all receive the benefits, and all rely on the welfare system, and all are willing to pay welfare costs.
Ⅳ. Legal Improvements
□ In the area of social welfare
- formerly the central government support the budget of local government in the form of grants and financial subsidy.
- Many arguments are raised to the effect that the use of subsidies and increased central control severely damage the autonomy of local governments.
- So the central government devolved the welfare affairs to local government as the autonomous tasks, and took measures to change subsidy in the form of transfer tax.
- This is the decentralization transfer tax. Though it changed the form, the system of distribution is not well prepared, and there are many operational problems.
- The volume of the financial budget of transfer tax is not large enough to be a main resource for social welfare.
□ The social security affairs
- can be performed in the form of authority delegated to the heads of administrative branch of local governments.
- This form of implementation does not follow the usual tendency to view the planning function as the national tasks and the implementation function as the local tasks;
ㆍit considers the implementation function as the national task, and this function can be delegated to the local government.
ㆍLocal Budget Act stipulates that the central government should pay the costs for this kind of delegated tasks in the form of transfer tax, but this tax is operated as if to be one of subsidies or grants to local government and is decided arbitrarily by the central government.
- the procurement of necessary budgets for the implementation of delegated tasks can run into a problem.
- the former practices are in keeping: the expenses for the welfare affairs are not accounted into the budget and central governments decide the volume of payment according to the budgetary situation. When we review the tasks which are the object of decentralization transfer tax, the welfare affairs occupy a large proportion of them.
- the operational system of decentralization transfer tax should be revised as soon as possible.
□ The conspicuous tendency in the course of implementation of the welfare affairs in local government
- that the welfare payments are given too much to the part in which the expectation to get more vote is greater.
- This characteristic causes a problem in the proper distribution of welfare budget.
- In light of the recent trend of low fertility rate, it is urgent to encourage births.
- welfare spending on the elderly tends to take priority to the child welfare.
- This is due to the fact that while children do not vote right now, the elderly have the vote and may affect the vote of other family members as the head of household.
- local governments consider the welfare of the elderly before that of children.
□ An error resulting from the process to implement the basic senior pension policy
- Basic senior pension is introduced to complement the national pension insurance.
- A portion of its payment is left to local governments, while the elderly population explosion is not considered properly.
- A difficult local financial situation has worsened. These symptoms continued for quite some time, but central government has shown any initiative to solve this problem.
- The central government seek to expand the recipients and amount of basic senior pension. If the financial burden of local government for its payment is not reduced, the financial future of the province will further darken.