The institution supports the development of occupational health services in client enterprises/organizations which actively promote and protect employee health and well-being.

The valuation of a social security scheme includes analysis of future uncertainties and their impacts on the scheme. An actuary identifies and, if possible, quantifies risks stemming from future uncertainties.

The social security institution involves actuaries in different areas of the investment process. This guideline refers to the situation where actuaries are directly involved in the design and carrying out of an investment strategy in respect of the reserve funds of the social security scheme.

The actuary and social security institution comply with national regulatory requirements established by the state and/or supervisory authorities. These regulations have an impact on a number of different areas of the social security institution such as management, financing and delivery of benefits. The social security institution with the assistance of the actuary assesses if the national laws and regulations of a country comply with ratified ILO Conventions and informs the national government of any divergence from the ILO Conventions.

Actuaries and other social security professionals providing actuarial services for social security schemes possess appropriate qualifications and expertise necessary to fulfil their responsibilities. A qualified actuary is a member of a national (or international) professional actuarial association (or working toward fulfilling requirements to become a member) and follows applicable professional standards, rules of professional conduct and continuing professional development requirements.

Communication is key to effective outreach to targeted populations, to provide information on the programmes available and to raise awareness of the benefits of social security for them, their family and their community.

The specific guideline in this section is:

• Establishing a communication strategy to make contact and build trust with population groups that are difficult to cover, including informal-economy workers

The institution maintains and constantly improves a service delivery network that accommodates the special needs of difficult-to-cover people.

The institution regularly gathers news and information and selects those that may have an impact on its operations and its stakeholders.

Effective external communication with the client, the most important stakeholder, is essential, as is dialogue with external groups and individuals.

The specific guidelines in this section are:

• Informing the citizen/client about benefits and services
• Relations with the media and the press
• Developing a social security culture

The institution establishes a strategy to ensure that contributions always fulfil the requirements of the corresponding benefits and that members’ rights are respected.

In order to improve information capabilities, the institution implements data exchange with organizations related to social security contribution collection and compliance but which do not have a formal mandate in this regard.

Examples of such organizations include national statistical institutions, and agencies providing business registration and establishment authorization (e.g. industry bodies, ministries, local authorities).

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.

Members are informed about the benefits due to them under the social security programmes.

The Head of Management is suitable and competent to fill the position in the social security institution. The term of office of the Head of Management and the basis for its renewal (if it is renewable) are clear and well defined.

The management establishes an information and communications system to provide accurate and up-to-date information to the stakeholders of the social security programme. The goal is to empower stakeholders with a full understanding of the programme and how it is being governed, to enable their effective participation.

To manage or prevent risks in real time, there is ongoing monitoring of the institution’s internal and external environment. Risk scenarios are analysed to keep the institution constantly alert and ready.

The investment unit of the institution efficiently implements the investment policies set out by the board or management.

The board and management continually aim to improve and to develop new services for members and beneficiaries.

The growing extent of ICT application globally has motivated the development of standards and frameworks, notably by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT®), IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®), Data Management International (DAMA), Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Object Management Group (OMG), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMM/CMMI).

The institution establishes a systematic and standardized framework for developing and managing its software applications throughout their life cycle, including requirements, design, the build, deployment, operation and optimization.

The institution defines a service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based model to guide the application of interoperability in the implementation of integrated social security systems.

In order to provide practical benefits to implementation, the model comprises key components such as basic registries and interoperability services.

The institution establishes a legally valid, efficient and secure means of maintaining an association between a user and a mobile device when a transaction is performed.

Such user identification will be required for several intermediate and advanced services.

The institution puts into practice specific processes to manage change, maintenance and the evolution of the master data system.

As the master data system is at the core of the institution’s information systems and is used by a large number of systems, change and evolution have to be managed so as to minimize impacts and service disruptions. Therefore, the information model of the master data system should reflect the concepts used throughout the institution.

The institution, in coordination with the other participants in the agreement, defines semantic interoperability resources at the international level in order to improve the automatization of data exchange operations among institutions involved in the agreement.

Using semantic interoperability in the implementation of international agreements would provide unambiguous definitions of the concepts used by the institutions involved. These mechanisms would be mainly based on metadata systems and vocabularies related to the exchanged data types.

The ISSA Guidelines on Investment of Social Security Funds allows members to follow a progressive process of governance. This starts with the setting up of the various structures involved in the process and includes defining roles and how these interact with the processes to be set up in order that governance objectives are met. These processes include defining and monitoring an investment strategy, monitoring performance and reporting.