Spain’s main union representing Public Servants has painted a dark picture of the country’s rushed attempts to launch a minimum basic income scheme to fight a spike in poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spokesperson for the CSIF union, Jose Manuel Molina said nearly 99 per cent of requests had not been processed.
“The Social Security Ministry has only really analysed 6,000 applications while 74,000 households that already receive financial aid were awarded the basic income automatically,” Mr Molina said.
A spokesperson for the Ministry acknowledged that the rhythm “was perhaps a bit slower than expected” but said the Government was working to “automate many procedures” so processing times should become faster from now on.
“The launch of a benefit is always difficult … and this situation is not an exception,” the Ministry spokesperson said.
Mr Molina said this was a new situation that had been made worse by years of budget cuts to the Public Service which had lost 25 per cent of its staff over the past decade.
“The problem is that they rushed everything, did it without training and a huge lack of staff,” he said.
“The Social Security Branch charged with the basic income scheme has only 1,500 Public Servants who also process most pension applications.”
He said these officials were facing an “avalanche” of requests, which already matched the number of pension requests received in an entire year.
About 500 temporary workers have been recruited as reinforcements but their assistance is limited because they do not have the status of a Public Servant, so they cannot officially approve requests for financial aid.
Demand is expected to increase. The Government has said the measure was expected to benefit some 850,000 homes, affecting a total of 2.3 million people — 30 per cent of whom were minors.
Madrid, 1 September 2020
