This part of the Guidelines is concerned with establishing the national and institutional frameworks for the prevention programme to be conducted by a social security institution.

The institution encourages enterprises to participate in prevention programmes by offering non-financial incentives.

The institution has a system in place that facilitates an efficient and timely recognition of occupational diseases. It ensures that a process is set up to assess the causality between a professional activity and a disease.

Collaboration and networking offer opportunities for knowledge sharing, the exchange of good practice, increased impact and enhanced outreach. They also make effective use of human and financial resources and help identify a common approach among all stakeholders.

The institution has the legal mandate and policy framework to engage in prevention and return-to-work activities. Where legislation does not support effective return-to-work and sustainable employability outcomes, statutory changes are advocated that will mandate the institution to do so.

The competent institutions clearly and proactively inform jobseekers and workers of their rights and obligations.

The institution recommends and adopts innovative approaches to balance the need for adequate income security for the individual and the ability of the employer to adapt to a changing business environment.

The board, management, policy-makers and return-to-work professional play crucial roles in the setting up and operation of a return-to-work system.

The guidelines should be followed using a “top-down” approach which encourages ownership of their inherent values so that they are simultaneously accepted throughout the organization. The remaining guidelines are based on the following seven principles of return-to-work policy and programmes:

The person concerned is the key stakeholder of a social security institution. As such, they must be encouraged to participate fully in decisions which impact upon them. A person’s “active participation” refers to the process of facilitating their ability to engage constructively in their return-to-work plans on an equal basis with other actors. They should be encouraged and enabled to provide their input, protect their interests and lend their support to the process.

There is evidence that the return-to-work programme has the right structure, processes, information and technology, and involves the appropriate professionals and partners, to enable it to respond to changing individual and environmental factors.

Monitoring and evaluation enables the institution to capitalize on opportunities to intervene, reduce risks, increase efficiencies and ensure the person’s return to work.

To improve service quality, the institution invests in the skills and capability of the staff who deliver its services.

The social security institution commits formally to the role of workplace health promoter by emphasizing its capacity to motivate and engage the insured population for added value.

The insured population includes both those in workplaces and other actors in the social health insurance system.

Formal commitment requires the institution to make a strategic choice in favour of health promotion in a setting approach, recognizing the broader social, economic and environmental contexts which influence health status.

The institution adopts actions and approaches which will contribute to achieving its strategic goals for workplace health promotion.

Appropriate and effective actions and approaches on workplace health promotion could include disseminating information and advice, campaigning, building capacity through training and consultancy services, creating incentives, establishing quality assurance processes, creating relevant tools, and providing advice on data collection and use.

The institution publicly recognizes the importance of counselling and employee assistance programmes in addressing work- and non-work-related mental health and well-being issues, and their impact on performance and productivity.

If a social security institution has an internal actuarial department, a regular audit of its operations is to be conducted. If a social security institution employs an external actuarial provider, the parties agree on the ways the social security institution monitors the appropriateness of the external provider’s processes.

The actuary inputs into the investment reporting process to ensure that information disclosed is accurate and presented in an appropriate way. The actuary also provides input into the decision-making process in respect of what information to disclose.

The actuary assists the social security scheme in complying with the relevant accounting standards. The actuary uses the relevant methodology and assumptions when carrying out calculations to be used for accounting purposes.

An actuary and/or other social security professional performing actuarial work for a social security institution develops and maintains the high level of professional expertise necessary to perform required actuarial work. In the case of using internal resources to perform actuarial work, the social security institution ensures that actuaries and/or other social security professionals are provided with sufficient opportunities to maintain technical knowledge, professional expertise and appropriate behaviour including the managing of potential conflicts of interest.

Reaching out to difficult-to-cover groups involves identifying and registering populations who may be unfamiliar with government processes.

The specific guidelines in this section are:

• Establishing an identification system
• Simplifying information requirements for registration
• Facilitating the registration process
• Implementing data quality assurance mechanisms

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

In time of crisis, the institution maintains public confidence, minimizes disruption in operations and mitigates reputational risks through the provision of timely, coherent, accurate and appropriate communication. Anticipation, timing, and competent response are critical elements of any crisis plan.

The institution proactively develops and maintains a professional relationship with the media and the press.

Social security programmes are often very complex. It is highly desirable that the media understand the programmes so that they can fully play their part in providing accurate information to the public.

The institution develops strategies to maintain and extend the effective coverage of contributory social security, by promoting the exhaustive inclusion in the collection system of all contributors covered by the social security regulations or, if this is not the case, through coverage extension.

The institution implements a strategy to foster a culture of awareness of social security and contribution collection.

Voluntary compliance with contribution policy can be highly dependent on the overall culture of the social security programme in a country. The culture of social security attempts to instil confidence in the programmes and their management by constant education of the public about the programmes and their benefits.

Should the board delegate its functions to a subgroup of the board, to a subgroup of officers at management level and/or to external service providers, such delegated functions are well defined, documented, time bound and subject to review and approval by the board. Legislation, policy or decree provides for the responsibility of the board members for such delegated functions.