Expensive preschool children: 4k Tatarstan citizens use maternity capital to pay for kindergarten
The regional branch of the Pension Fund of Russia has summed up the results of the year, discussed the pension reform and amendments to the law
The Tatarstan branch of the Pension Fund of Russia has analyzed the results of its work in 2018 and remained satisfied with them. Head of the department Eduard Vafin reported on a growth of pensions and put the republic in the forefront of pilot projects' implementation. At the same time, during the final board meeting it was found out that Tatarstan families began to direct the maternity capital not to improve housing conditions, but to pay for kindergartens and nurseries for their children. Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan Leyla Fazleeva, having listened to all the reports, emphasized the pension reform and the need to raise awareness of the population and successful indexation of payments next year. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Pension Fund: pensions are growing, we are doing our job well
The Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan, Leyla Fazleeva, was demonstrated the results of the department's informatization — on a big screen one could see the average size of pensions in the regions of Tatarstan, number of online applications and other data.
The director of the department of the Pension Fund of Russia, Eduard Vafin, called the year 2018 for the pension system of the country landmark and rich in tasks and volume of the work performed. The payments to the population, according to him, were carried out without interruptions and the office coped with all the tasks.
In 2018, the Tatarstan branch spent 205 billion rubles to pay the pensions to 1,15 million residents of the Republic of Tatarstan. In January, February, April and August, the pensions in Tatarstan were indexed and recalculated for working pensioners. The average size of insurance old-age pensions has increased by 461 rubles, to 13,700 rubles. As it is alreasy known, the Russian government has already secured the growth of payments for the next six years by the bill, and it is not to exceed the level of inflation. This year, in January, the average pension is to be 14,600 rubles, and in 2020 — 15,600 rubles, in 2021 — up to 16,600 rubles.
However, one should understand that not every pensioner is to receive such amounts. For example, in 2019 the indexation is to be 7,05%, and if the pensioner earlier received 15,000 rubles, he or she is going to receive by about 1,000 rubles more. But if a person for all his life earned a pension of 10,000 rubles, then he or she, accordingly, will have an increase of 705 rubles.
The state-provided pensions for working and non-working pensioners have also slightly increased — the increase in payments of 2,9% has affected about 80,000 citizens of Tatarstan. Since 1 February, it is planned to raise monthly cash payments by 3,4%, and from 1 April 2019, social pensions — by 2,4%.
''The necessary amount of funds for the above purposes is provided in the budget of the department for 2019 and will be about 192,7 billion rubles, and this does not include the cost of maternity capital,'' said Eduard Vafin.
He also said that in 2019, within the framework of the implementation of the Federal law, fixed payments for old age and disability are to be raised by 25% for those who have worked in agriculture for 30 years and now do not work, but live in villages. There are about 50,000 such people in Tatarstan. The same category of rural residents in 2019 will receive 1,333 rubles in the payment of insurance pensions for old age and disability of the 1st and 2nd groups, 667 rubles — as part of payments to pensioners of 3d group of disability.
Maternity capital go to kindergartens and nurseries
A separate issue is the implementation of the maternity capital programme. Over 11 months of 2018, certificates for maternity capital were issued to 18,000 families, and payments totalling 7,7 billion rubles were received by 20,700 families. A large part of the applicants still spend the maternity capital to improve housing conditions. But since the beginning of 2018, the programme has been introduced with amendments that removed the three-year limitation on the use of funds for pre-school education of children. The result was a growing interest of parents in this particular item of expenditure. In 2018, about 4,000 families spent the maternity capital for kindergarten and nursery school. Since 2019, the recipients of the certificate will also have the opportunity to use it for the construction of a residential house on a land plot.
The maternity capital programme has been extended until 2021. At the same time, indexation should be expected only in 2020. If now the amount of payments is 453,026 rubles, then in a year it will grow to 470,241 rubles.
Tatarstan in the avant-garde
Managing Director of the Tatarstan branch of the Pension Fund of Russia Eduard Vafin says that Tatarstan is in the forefront — in particular, the implementation of pilot projects in the pension system continues.
''It should be noted that many of the ideas on the Pension Fund, proposed by our department, have been realised, have found their further development throughout the country. Currently, we participate in 22 pilot projects in the field of IT alone ,'' said Vafin.
Among them — the project for the calculation of pensions according to personified records, which the office proposed at Finnopolis in 2016, held in Innopolis. In addition, in 2018 the republic completed a pilot project for the maintenance and storage of pension documentation without duplication in paper form. Another example — now the office is a participant of the pilot project on filling the electronic storage of the Pension Fund at the federal level.
The Pension Fund in Tatarstan provided more than 83% of all public services remotely, and since February 2018 local residents can apply for services to any body of the Pension Fund and the Multifunctional Center for Provision of State and Municipal Services (MFC).
Last year, the department began to introduce artificial intelligence to exclude the human influence on the pension calculation process. The system 'Knowledge Base' is engaged in it. In general, according to Vafin, in recent years the Pension Fund has made a real breakthrough in the provision of services in electronic form.
At the start of the pension reform
Naturally, when summing up the results it was impossible not to say about raising the retirement age. Briefly repeating the basic principles of the pension reform, Eduard Vafin spoke about another project — 'My Pension'. The department of the Pension Fund found out that among the population there is a high level of discontent with the size of pensions with the low level of interest in the formation of future pensions. The project proposes to increase the involvement and awareness of citizens older than 45 years in this process, so that they have time to change the situation before retirement.
''That is, the advance work, carried out by us a year before the retirement age of a citizen, will begin 15-20 years in advance. Thus, by the time of retirement, a citizen learns and uses all the opportunities to increase his or her pension rights and will be guided in a difficult pension legislation,'' says the head of the department.
Deputy Prime Minister Leyla Fazleeva, after listening to the report of Vafin and his colleagues, called the year 2018 quite difficult, but thanks to the work of the authorities, a set of measures was implemented to ensure positive dynamics in the economy. Turning to the pension reform, she emphasized that its implementation and image of Tatarstan largely depend on the quality of interaction between officials and the population, as well as the implementation of all tasks.
''In this regard, it is necessary to fully carry out all the planned indexation, recalculation of pensions in 2019. This will be the main task,'' Leyla Fazleeva believes.
The official calls the public awareness campaign important as how well the information will be understood by people on the ground will depend on how well we convey it. To this end, the deputy prime minister asked the ministry of information and communications of the Republic of Tatarstan in the shortest possible time to involve the executive authorities of the republic to the single system of interdepartmental electronic interaction version 3.0 to participate in the work to inform the population about the rights of citizens of pre-retirement age.
According to Fazleeva, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan prepared recommendations for the municipalities to respect the rights of citizens of pre-retirement age.
''It is the holding of meetings with employers in the field on the observance of labour rights, continuous monitoring of the situation in the territory of the municipality on the observance of labour rights of citizens of pre-retirement age, ensuring the information of citizens of pre-retirement age and the creation of hotlines in each municipal district,'' said the deputy prime minister.