The Hungarian Government will begin consultations with the interested parties about social workers’ career models, State Minister for Social and Family Affairs Miklós Soltész said on Monday.
The consultations, involving representatives from the Government, social workers’ professional and trade unions as well as the financers of social institutions, will begin on Friday, 17 January. The task of the working group will be to come up with long-term, sustainable proposals for childcare and social workers’ career models.
Mr. Soltész said he convened the group at the initiative of Minister for Human Resources Zoltán Balog and pointed out that the Government had increased social workers’ salaries in January as one of the first steps of the career model. The Government has earmarked a budget of 9.2 billion forints (EUR 30.8 million) for the salary increase.
Mr. Soltész said that after the initial meeting more organisations will be involved who can contribute to the work at hand. He added that despite economic difficulties the Government has managed to maintain the level of funding for the two fields (childcare and social work) in 2010 and 2011, while in the subsequent period several areas received a substantial increase in funding.
He also said that the social security registration system can now provide up-to-date figures for those in basic and specialised care as well as on the financing of these institutions.
(Ministry of Human Resources)
