The current legal and effective coverage situation are analysed both in the light of current legislation and scheme administration, as well as within the global context of employment trends and population changes which may trigger changes in both legal and effective coverage.

The institution develops a long-term social security coverage extension plan subject to the guidance and support of the relevant authority. The inclusion of relevant stakeholders in the development of the plan helps to identify issues early but also helps in securing external support in the implementation phase.

The institution combines administrative solutions with supporting policy measures to foster compliance with minimal intervention required.

To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its communication activities, the institution identifies the major groups and sub-groups of its stakeholders.

The communication unit establishes service level agreements with relevant internal units for the provision of communication services.

The ISSA defines governance as the manner in which the vested authority uses its powers to achieve the institution’s objectives, including its powers to design, implement and innovate the organization’s policies, rules, systems and processes, and to engage and involve its stakeholders.

The institution defines a strategy on fraud control and error risk management.

The strategy should include an organizational structure, specialization of roles (e.g. analysis, planning, control in the field), methodologies and procedures. It should balance preventive and corrective approaches, and be based on both intensive use of information and field activities (on-site inspections).

The concept of governance is understood in many ways by different people. Its definition often depends on the goals to be pursued, the entities involved, and the socio-political environment within which these goals are to be achieved.

The board implements the established actuarial measures to ensure the financial sustainability of each of the social security programmes established by the institution. For institutions that have investment reserve funds, standards and benchmarks are established for the returns on investments to support the financial sustainability of the social security programmes.

The principle of accountability is at the heart of good governance. At a political level, it means making rulers accountable to the ruled. To enforce accountability, governance structures and mechanisms are needed to enable the principals to hold their chosen trustees legally responsible for their acts and decisions.

The management regularly informs the stakeholders and the general public on the status of the institution and its operations.

The strategic plan spells out the institution’s plan of action, goals, targets, milestones and deliverables to achieve its vision. It articulates the programmes and activities to be implemented, and the management environment that would ensure coherence and maximize synergies within the institution. The formulation process ensures the consistency of the strategic plan with the institution’s mandate.

To maintain its financial sustainability, the contribution rates are set according to the promised benefits of the social security programme.

The board and management protect the institution from all forms of corruption and fraud in the collection of programme contributions.

The management establishes a standard system of policies and procedures for the ex-post evaluation of new investments in ICT, to ensure delivery of promised benefits, services and improvements with respect to project goals, as contained and justified in the project proposal.

Taking into account the corporate impact and dynamics of ICT, investment proposals in ICT should be considered with appropriate care, diligence and soundness.

The institution implements effective and efficient mechanisms for information retrieval and analysis which provide the means to exploit existing data assets, especially to support decision-making.

The effectiveness and efficiency of processes using information will, therefore, strongly depend on the mechanisms to retrieve and analyse the information.

The institution implements security measures in software application development, especially for Internet-based applications.

The institution implements preventive measures to foster the quality of the master data, especially by communicating data quality requirements to development teams and to master data operations and personnel responsible for master data-related tasks.

The institution, in coordination with the other institutions participating in the agreement, defines an architecture enabling it to perform international data exchanges in an efficient and secure way.

In the case of multilateral agreements, the international architecture may include a “trusted third organization” storing key common information, such as a log of transactions, digital signatures and certificates.

The ICT operations of the international agreements comprise the system administration activities that enable the use of ICT systems to perform specific case transactions of the agreement.

Managing the ICT operations for the agreements involves the following main aspects:

This part of the guidelines refers to the processes that the investing institution must put into place to meet governance requirements and ultimately meet its investment objectives. These processes apply whether the investment itself is carried out by an internal investment unit or an external manager.

Performance and risk analysis is conducted and reported as part of the monitoring process. Performance and risk analysis and reporting is undertaken for the portfolio as a whole and also by asset classes, direct investments and external managers. Performance and risk is reported and aggregated by an independent performance measurer.

The ISSA Guidelines for Social Security Administration were prepared by the ISSA General Secretariat wih the ISSA technical commissions.

The institution has an adequate and reliable reporting system for occupational accidents and suspected cases of occupational disease.

This is an indispensable tool for data collection and data analysis. It enables the institution to conduct targeted prevention activities based on identified occupational risks and contributes to the evaluation of prevention activities by comparing longitudinal data from interventions.