Enrolling in the civil society associations’ register in the field of social protection at the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy

New legal opportunities for citizens are opened

The latest amendments in the 2004 Law on Social Protection have given an opportunity to the civil society associations and physical persons to be able to perform activities in the field of social protection established by this law (Article 4 of the Law on changing and amending the law on social protection, No.65/2004). The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy has started the process of enrolling in the register those civil society associations that will deal with various aspects in the field of social issues. Documentation that needs to be submitted to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and will be processed by a special commission is the following:

·        Certificate from the Payment Operations Bureau for paid taxes and other public costs;
·        Certificate from the Central Register for the civil society association’s solvency
·        Agenda for the current year (2005);
·        Short description of at least three projects carried out by the organization in this field (in order to prove at least three-year work in this field, which is one of the conditions for acquiring this status);
·        Organization’s statute
·        Document for enrolment in the register of competent court of law.

Organizations that will be enrolled in the Register of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy will be able to use finances for performing certain activities in the field of social protection.

Finances will be given through a public competition with applications submitted by civil society associations.

Commission for cooperation with civil society associations will take into consideration only applications that meet the conditions in accordance with the Law on Social Protection and the Rule book on the manner and procedure for giving finances to civil society associations for performing certain activities in the field of social protection.

While processing the applications after the public competition, the following criteria will be taken into consideration, established in the Rule book and rated as follows:

1.      1-10 points – proposal’s appropriateness with the requirement of the public competition;
2.      20-30 points – proposer’s capacity, experience in realization of projects of same or similar type, suitability of persons who will take part in the project’s realization in terms of education and work experience in the field of social protection, control and management in project’s implementation; and
3.      45-60 points – relation between project’s objectives with proposed activities and results and clearly established activities and proposal measures for project’s sustainability.

While processing the application and realization of the project, the Commission can carry out an immediate inspection in the civil society association, that is partners proposed for the project’s realization, in order to establish the real state of affairs.

The civil society association, that is the project’s developers have to allow unlimited access to the place where project’s activities are carried out and its office, as well as all documents related to the project’s realization have to be available to the Commission.

If in the course of the project’s realization some not earmarked spending of funds is noted, or it is realized that the objective will not be achieved, or it is noted that there is serious violation of the Law on Social Protection, with some other law or regulation, the Commission makes proposal to the Minister of labor and social policy to terminate the financing procedure.