On October 25, the State Council Information Office held a regular policy briefing to introduce the relevant situation regarding the implementation of tiered and categorized social assistance and the development of meal assistance services for the elderly, and answered questions from reporters.
Recently, the State Council Executive Meeting reviewed and approved the "Opinions on Strengthening Dynamic Monitoring of Low-Income Population and Doing a Good Job in Tiered and Categorized Social Assistance" and the "Action Plan for Actively Developing Meal Assistance Services for the Elderly" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"), formulated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in conjunction with relevant departments. These documents aim to promote the thorough implementation of the Party Central Committee's deployment requirements across the country, strengthen dynamic monitoring of low-income population, and do a better job in social assistance work in a more accurate, timely, and effective manner; and actively, steadily, and according to local conditions develop meal assistance services for the elderly to ensure practical results.
Social assistance is a fundamental and safety-net institutional arrangement within the social security system. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated: "We should improve the tiered and categorized social assistance system."
"The degree and circumstances of hardship among low-income groups vary, requiring further reform to enhance the targetedness and precision of assistance," said Tang Chengpei, Vice Minister of Civil Affairs. He explained that the "Opinions" categorize low-income populations by the degree of hardship they face and classify them according to the type of hardship, providing targeted assistance measures. It fully leverages the role and potential of special assistance programs in areas such as healthcare, education, housing, and employment, further expanding the scope of special assistance from those receiving minimum living allowances and those in extreme poverty to members of families on the edge of poverty and those facing rigid expenditures. This broader scope creates a "tiered and gradual" approach, achieving precise coverage of special social assistance.
Educational assistance is an important component of special social assistance programs. Ma Jiabin, head of the Basic Education Department of the Ministry of Education, explained that in terms of financial aid for students from economically disadvantaged families, efforts will be made to expand coverage, achieving full coverage of all educational stages from preschool to postgraduate education, including both public and private schools, and ensuring full coverage of students from economically disadvantaged families. At the same time, the aid standards at each educational stage will be gradually increased to "ensure that no student drops out of school due to financial difficulties." Regarding the completion of compulsory education for school-age children, the "two bottom lines" of ensuring no student drops out and providing special care for special groups will be firmly upheld. More children with disabilities will be included in the special education support system, and the per-student public funding for special education students will be increased to 7,000 yuan.
The "Opinions" propose improving the dynamic monitoring information platform and database for low-income populations to avoid omissions or duplication of assistance, achieve coordinated allocation of assistance resources, aggregate and share assistance information, and effectively improve assistance efficiency. "The national dynamic monitoring information platform for low-income populations has already collected basic information on more than 66 million low-income individuals," said Liu Xitang, Director of the Social Assistance Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. "The 'Opinions' propose scientifically setting early warning indicators to provide relevant departments with information inquiry and demand push services to support tiered and categorized assistance efforts. In other words, early warning information must be categorized and processed."
Currently, the number of elderly people who are frail, disabled, living alone, or left behind in rural areas continues to grow, making meal assistance services a common practical need and eager expectation among them. The Action Plan proposes 18 measures in 6 aspects, taking inclusiveness and diversification as the development path, giving full play to the role of market mechanisms, and actively building an elderly meal assistance service network that covers urban and rural areas, is rationally distributed, and is jointly built and shared.
Tang Chengpei explained that, in terms of enhancing the accessibility of meal assistance services for the elderly, the city is optimizing its layout according to the "15-minute home-based elderly care service circle" and "15-minute convenient service circle," combining the comprehensive use of existing resources with appropriate new construction as needed to improve the elderly meal assistance service network. Support is given to expanding the elderly meal assistance service function in various elderly care service institutions and facilities, as well as community comprehensive service facilities; catering enterprises, property service enterprises, and qualified government agencies and enterprises are encouraged to actively participate in various ways; and support is provided for facilitating meal delivery by setting up centralized distribution points.
The Action Plan proposes that the development of meal assistance for the elderly should establish a diversified funding mechanism involving contributions from individuals, concessions from enterprises, government subsidies, collective contributions, and social donations. Song Qichao, Director of the Social Security Department of the Ministry of Finance, stated that the finance department will actively raise funds, refine subsidy policies, provide targeted subsidies based on different categories, strengthen fund supervision, and improve the efficiency of fund utilization.
People's Daily
