The Budget of the Ministry of Social Welfare for the period 2023-2025 was presented today to the members of the Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee by the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Ms Anastasia Anthousi.
Speaking at the Committee's meeting, Ms Anthousi pointed out that the Government of Nicos Anastasiades set as its primary goal the creation of a substantial, efficient and strong welfare state, with high quality, accessible, friendly, affordable and personalized services, responding to the modern needs of the ever-changing society and citizens. To achieve this goal, the establishment of the Department of Social Inclusion is completed with the transfer of the Ministry of Social Welfare from 1 January 2023. As the Deputy Minister noted, from now on all services to support socially vulnerable groups will be under the umbrella of one Authority, with the aim that the approach will be comprehensive, substantive, direct and targeted to those in real need.
Strategic objectives of the Deputy Ministry, according to Ms Anthoussi, remain the modernisation of the organisation, methods and working principles, as well as increasing the operational effectiveness and efficiency of its Departments and Services, through the simplification of procedures and the improvement of citizen accessibility, with the help of digital transformation and e-government.
Budget 2023
The total Budget of the Ministry of State for 2023 (Regular and Development Expenditure) amounts to approximately €547.4 million, an increase of €4.6 million. It is noted that, with the transfer of the Department for Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities (from 1 January 2023), an amount of €49.8 million is added to the total Budget for 2023, representing an increase of €2 million compared to the corresponding Budget of the Department for 2022 (€47.8 million). As a result of the above transfer, the total amount of the Budget for 2023 amounts to €597.3 million. To the above is added an amount of €23 million coming from co-financed projects with the Directorate General for Development as Managing Authority, and therefore the final total Budget of the Department for the year 2023 (Regular Expenditure, Development Expenditure and co-financed projects), amounts to €620.5 million.
With a three-year horizon (2023-2025), the Budget of the Ministry of Social Welfare is estimated to reach approximately €631.5 million by 2025, with the additional increase amounting to another €11 million. In detail, the Welfare Benefit Management Service has absorbed around €334 million (76%), and Social Welfare Services €70.5 million (70%), while the implementation rate of projects co-financed by Community funds stands at 45% with an amount of €2.7 million
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