On 7 February, President of Latvia Egils Levits met with the Welfare Minister Evika Siliņa at the Riga Castle to discuss reform plans and Minister’s welfare agenda, especially employment and social welfare strategies.
Minister Siliņa told President Levits about government decision of January 24th establishing a minimum income threshold, a step required to avoid negative Constitutional Court ruling in the case.
One of the main issues discussed during the meeting was a modern national employment strategy. President acknowledged the establishment of the recently-formed Human Capital Development Council, a cooperation platformed composed of Ministry of Welfare, Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Education and Science. This initiative will help employers, employees, educators and political experts agree on which professions and skills are needed in the labour market. ‘Joint forecasting of future labour market needs will allow to guide job-seekers to professions facing shortages, and support modern reskilling schemes,’ President of Latvia stressed.
Egils Levits and Evika Siliņa talked about EU-funded support programmes promoting employment of people with disabilities. President was also interested in how social enterprises are doing in Latvia. Social entrepreneurship mostly flourishes in Riga and its vicinity, said Minister. She also said the Ministry is working with local municipalities to promote social entrepreneurship support in local business communities.
Conversation then moved on to state and local welfare services. Both officials indicated that residents having specific problems should have access to integrated support database with all available services. Digitalisation aimed at more structured and strategically-driven outcomes should make aggregated data bases, system compatibility and service design better in foreseeable future, President Levits underlined.
President of Latvia acknowledged Welfare Minister’s views on early protection of children’s interests. It is crucial to protect the rights of all children and offer early support to children in various stages of development when assistance may be crucial, Evika Siliņa explained. Usually, children and parents seek help only when something has gone wrong. It is, however, vital to make sure children’s rights protection and advocacy organisations coordinate their efforts in a manner preventing crises in child’s life and offers early help. Minister also commented on the Family Court reform plan.
Family support and demographic policies are influenced by multitude of factors, officials agreed. For example, overall birth rate depends on the overall stability in the country, stable jobs, security, state support. After the adoption of the budget, government will launch a review of state family support system, Minister Siliņa said.
President Levits and Minister Siliņa also discussed growing demand for care homes and social services. Hospice care was also among these services. Hospice care is currently available in Riga, Latgale and southern regions of Kurzeme. Providers are ‘Samarieši’ (Samaritans, NGO) and private social enterprise ‘Rūre’.
