Rather than focusing on quantity, officials from the agency responsible for managing the social security database want to improve the reliability and quality of the information in the system
José Ignacio Campo and Nora Alicia Valido, from Argentina’s National Social Security Administration (ANSES)
Brasília, April 6, 2016 – Following the implementation over the past years of the Single Social Security Database (Base Única da Seguridade Social), originally enacted in 1999, Argentina is now looking to delve deeper into data analysis and design quality public policies based on this integrated information system.
“We are now working more on quality than quantity. We already have everyone in the database. We have twenty years of mortality data and the entire labor history of the past 25 years. We want to improve the quality of this data and advance in traceability,” stated José Ignacio Campo, Director of Social Benefits Innovation for Argentina’s National Social Security Administration (ANSES).
Campo took part in the International Seminar on Database Integration and Information Systems for Pubic Policy Improvement, held on April 5 and 6 in Brasília. At the event, ANSES officials shared some of the challenges they have faced in optimizing costs and processes, as well as making the procedures for citizens to verify their data and provide information to the State less bureaucratic. The Single Database also contains information pertaining to family relationships, addresses, and past benefits records.
The agency manages the Unique Tax Identification Code (Código Único de Identificação Laboral, CUIL), used as the primary piece of identifying information when Argentine state agencies exchange information, which is now a legal obligation.
Tied to the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security, ANSES – which exclusively generates four components of the national database – is responsible for paying out retirement funds, pensions, and non-contributory social inclusion policy benefits, such as the Universal Child Allowance (Asignación Universal por Hijo, AUH) and the Pregnancy Allowance (Asignación por Embarazo).
The latter two are part of a myriad of relatively new benefits; they started to be paid in 2009 when universal social protection policies were expanded to include the population outside of the formal labor market. This policy expansion required technical adjustments made to the agency’s database, in order to determine eligibility for these benefits through configurable rules.
Today, 2,089,439 families benefit from the AUH. The program, just like the Family Grant Program (Bolsa Família) in Brazil, requires certain conditions to be met in the areas of health and education.
In the framework of Argentine public administration, ANSES collects information, grants conditions, and ensures payment of benefits, including those from other institutions. For the Household Program (Programa Lar), funding for the gas subsidy for low-income families technically falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy, but it is ANSES, which collects the information, that actually executes the payments.
According to ANSES, this integrated information system has already yielded results in the services provided to citizens.
“For example, if a husband dies, ANSES will have all of the information, past records, and confirmation of the registry. We receive the information and within 30 days, the wife, son, or daughter can already start to receive the pension,” stated Nora Alicia Valido, Coordinator of the Database of Persons and Administrative Solutions for the agency. Benefits for families with newborn children are also released in the same timeframe.
The International Seminar was organized by the Brazilian National Secretariat for Citizenship Income (Senarc), belonging to the Ministry of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation (MDS), in partnership with the Brazil Learning Initiative for a World Without Poverty (WWP).
Marco Prates, WWP