Not specific enough, too few staff: According to a report, the employment agency cannot implement the planned basic child security at the beginning of 2025.
Berlin – Is the traffic light coalition threatened with a new setback? The Federal Employment Agency (BA) considers the federal government’s timetable for the introduction of basic child welfare to be unimplementable. According to its own information, the authority categorically rules out the reform coming into force on January 1, 2025. Instead, it proposes to introduce basic child security only from July 1, 2025 – and gradually: This emerges from the statement of the authority for the expert hearing on basic child security in the Bundestag next Monday (November 13), from which the Rheinische Post quoted.
The government’s planned introduction date of January 1, 2025 is “no longer achievable for the BA for financial, organizational, infrastructural and personnel reasons,” according to the report in the BA’s statement. “Due to the many organizational and content-related questions that the cabinet proposal still leaves open, as well as the extensive IT adjustments required, the timeline for implementation can only be roughly determined.”
Further ambiguities regarding basic child protection
Only after the legal text has been clarified can “concrete implementation planning” take place. Another reason for the delay is the need to recruit and train staff for the introduction of 5,355 full-time positions. The BA therefore proposed a gradual introduction to basic child welfare from mid-2025.
She also warned the Bundestag parties to close regulatory gaps in the draft bill from Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (The Greens). It is unclear, for example, “to what intensity and with what commitment” young people who are no longer entitled to citizen’s benefit due to their own right to basic child support should be looked after in the future. This affects around 400,000 people.
“Without this specification, the BA cannot quantify the compliance costs for the care and placement of young people,” the authority warned loudly Rhenish Post.
The new service planned from 2025 consists of two components. An income-independent child guarantee amount replaces the previous child benefit. Adult children should receive it directly. There is also an additional child allowance, which is staggered according to age and depends on the family’s income. Both components together should cover the child’s subsistence level and also replace other previous benefits.
Discussions on basic child security in the Bundestag: Paus sees a “paradigm change”
According to the traffic light government’s wishes, basic child benefits should bundle essential family benefits from 2025 and make them more easily accessible. The bill is scheduled to be discussed in the Bundestag on Thursday. Paus sees the start of parliamentary deliberations as an important step forward. “Basic child welfare will make the lives of so many families in Germany better,” said the minister on Wednesday in the government questioning in the Bundestag. This is “a paradigm shift”.
Paus pointed out that one in five children in Germany is currently poor or at risk of poverty. It is therefore important that basic child security should shift from the families’ obligation to collect children to “the state’s obligation to provide them”. (lrg/dpa)
#Traffic #light #setback #Schedule #basic #child #support