The draft amendment to the Act on state aid in raising children and some other acts assumes, first of all, that the „Family 500+” programme will soon be dealt with by the Social Insurance Institution. Another important change is the submission of applications online only, as well as payment of the benefit to the account, i.e. moving away from payments in cash.

On Wednesday, the first reading of the government draft was held in the Sejm.

„Family 500+” means better development prospects for children

As the Minister of Family and Social Policy, Marlena Maląg, stressed during her speech in the Sejm, thanks to the „Family 500+” programme, families had become wealthier, there had been better development prospects for children, for investing in the family, and above all, for better education.

– This is one of the factors supporting families in making decisions on having more children. So far, every month the „Family 500+” programme has been used by nearly 6.5 million children. Since the beginning of the implementation of this programme, we have transferred more than PLN 156 billion to Polish families as an investment in the family – said the Minister.

The Social Insurance Institution will handle the programme

As indicated by the Head of the Ministry of Family, for the purposes of handling the „Family 500+” programme, 0.85% of the disbursed funds are transferred – on an example of 2020 – i.e. PLN 326.8 million.

– We have a plan that as from 1 January next year, the operationalisation of the task of paying the „Family 500+” benefit should be taken over by the Social Insurance Institution. The costs of the service of this programme by self-governments in 2020 amounted to more than PLN 326 million. The Social Insurance Institution will receive 0.1% for the implementation of this programme, and annually we have about PLN 40 billion guaranteed for the „500+” benefit. We can see that these funds will be relatively smaller – said Minister Maląg.

As she mentioned, this year the Social Insurance Institution had already taken over the service of the „Good Start” programme.

Online applications, funds to the account

Another proposed change in the “Family 500+” programme concerns applications. Just like in the case of “Good Start”, soon the submission of an application for the child-support benefit will be possible online only.

Even today, parents are dealing with it perfectly. As early as in 2018, 32.3% of applications were submitted online. In 2019, it was already 65.8%, and in the first four months of 2021 – as much as 84%.

The amendment to the Act also assumes that the child-support benefit will be paid only in a non-cash form to the bank account number indicated by the applicant. What is important, only in the case of less than 2% of people, this payment takes place in a different form than to the bank account.

In turn, the Deputy Minister of Family and Social Policy, Barbara Socha, stressed that the project did not introduce any changes related to the rights of families and their access to the „500+” benefit.