Proposition 52K1260

Projet de loi modifiant l'article 8bis de la loi du 27 février 1987 relative aux allocations aux personnes handicapées, en vue de réduire le délai de confirmation d'un handicap.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Dec. 7, 2005

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

administrative formalities administrative procedure disabled person

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA LDD MR FN VB

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 29, 2009 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Maggie De Block, the rapporteur, refers to the written report.

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The initial proposal provided for a gradual reduction of the waiting period from eight to seven months on 1 January 2008, and to six months on 1 January 2009. In view of the fact that the first date had already expired at the time of the treatment, on my initiative, supported by the majority and the opposition, the waiting time in one move was reduced to six months, starting from 1 January 2010.

I remember that my party colleague’s ambition was greater. She wanted to reduce the waiting period to five months, given the precarious financial situation in which most applicants are. Since this was not feasible, we have come to the compromise that is now ahead. The annual average waiting time varies from six to ten months. In 2000, the waiting period was 10 months. Subsequently, the waiting time has been systematically reduced, to rise again in 2007 to eight months, 7.9 months, to be exact. In September 2008, 50% of the files were processed again within a seven-month period.

From my question to Ms. Secretary of State in July last year, I learned that in 2007 an amount of 2.319.874 euros in remittances was paid. I would like to emphasize, colleagues, that the applicants are often people who are not only disabled or in need of assistance, but also belong to the lowest income categories, which makes any exceeding that statutory deadline of handling the file for them very financially painful.

The duration of the treatment period is influenced by various factors. The most important are the time the applicants take to send the requested data, the medical-social evolution, the verification of income and in particular the income arising from movable goods. Especially in the last two, there is a lot of delay. Obtaining the medical data leads to delays that can reach up to 296 days. The control of income from real estate sometimes takes up to 222 days.

The issue of waiting times is not new. During the previous legislature, the first measures were taken to reduce those waiting times. I refer here to the Communit-e, in which data can be immediately exchanged between the municipal governments and the administration, Medic-e, in which medical data can be exchanged, the digitisation of the files, which allows to work faster, and the electronic exchange of data in the field of social security, through the Cross Point Bank of Social Security.

Another important measure that has already been taken is the ability of the services to decide on the basis of existing documents. This is already the case for 20% of the applications. This is a significant time gain, Mrs. Secretary of State. In fiscal terms, a lot of data is now directly accessible, but the problem remains, however, the duration of the control of income from real estate and the fact that it is not drastically reduced in the short term.

For the medical data, the delay appears to be mainly due to the additional information that the control physicians need and which is required from the treating specialist or physician.

In order to ⁇ the objective set out in this draft law, Ms. Secretary of State has already announced a number of important measures in her policy letters. For example, it provides twelve full-time equivalents for the workstations. In this way, the file can be completed administratively faster and the volume of the number of files can also be limited.

Nine medical assistants will also – which is important – come to the expert centres to make a preliminary analysis of the medical dossier, which also makes it possible to quickly obtain additional information for the medical examination. Finally, the medical forms that need to be completed by the attending physician will also be improved.

Of course, we also hope that Mrs. Secretary of State, together with the Minister of Finance, will be able to make the deadlines for the control of income from real estate also run faster, so that those waiting times can also be shortened there. Of course, my party, Open Vld, continues to hope that in the short term we can reduce the waiting times for now to five months, which was actually the original idea in the original proposal.

Madam the President, Madam the Secretary of State, dear colleagues, it is Senators Open Vld and PS who are at the origin of the important legislative text that we have before our eyes today. This text is important because its provisions are likely to modify the existing relations between the federal administration and the persons who apply for recognition of their disability.

So far, Mr. De Clercq has just recalled that the legal deadline for processing applications is eight months from the date of introduction of the file. This period of eight months is observed in 65% of cases. This already represents a sufficiently long waiting time, but when you exceed that deadline, you can imagine what it means for the citizens concerned.

While the objective of the text to reduce the legal time of processing of files is consensually welcomed because it is entirely legitimate, the means to ⁇ it are as important as the setting of realistic deadlines. We think it would be dishonest for the citizens concerned that parliamentarians arbitrarily decide to set deadlines, at the limit to make themselves well seen, while knowing that those deadlines will not be respected. It would give false hopes to those people who are already in suffering. Moreover, this would be irresponsible because we know that when deadlines are not met, the state must pay compensation for delays.

The obstacles to the reduction of the legal deadline are many and they are the responsibility of many actors. I will not extend the work of the committee, just read the report. However, I would like to say that we have done a serious job, that we have received numerous figures and studies, and that we have been able to make projections for the future. Finally, we were able to obtain a formal commitment on these projections from the Secretary of State in order to pursue this ambitious goal of reducing the deadline to six months from 1 January 2010.

This is a bold but realistic deadline. We believe that the signal given to the government is quite clear since the applicants are in their right.

We, parliamentarians, will also be uncompromising regarding compliance with this new deadline for processing the files.

It must be said that, for years, the political leaders in charge of the case have acted on the delays, deplored them without however daring to initiate an ambitious policy. It is now on the rails. It will need to be supported by financial means – and I regret that the Minister of Finance is not present to hear me – but I hope that such means will soon be made available. It is up to you, Mrs. Secretary of State, today to carry out this project in good shape. And I have no doubt that you will do it.

I will not be too long. That’s why I’m talking about my bank.

The proposal on which we will be called to speak, in a moment, is probably not sufficient. However, it can be considered satisfactory.

Why is it not sufficient? Because my colleague Josy Arens and I had submitted, on behalf of the CDH group, a proposal aimed at further reducing the time to comply with the provisions of the Charter of the Social Insured, which advocates, for all beneficiaries of social benefits, a maximum processing time of four months. It seemed to us that people with disabilities deserved as much as others to be able to benefit from prompt handling by the administration of the applications submitted.

As various speakers have said, it is true that today the deadlines are long, much too long. Therefore, any step in the direction of a shortening of this time of processing by the administration is welcome, which leads us to consider, nonetheless, the proposal satisfactory.

That being said, we do not grieve, Madame the Secretary of State, and I hope you do not keep us rigorous of being stubborn: we consider that this four-month period prescribed by the Charter of the Social Insured must remain a shared goal not only by the co-signators and my political formation, but also by all and especially by yourself. If it has been possible to obtain a six-month deadline obligation as soon as possible, I hope that you will fight – and if so, you can count on us – to obtain a shortening of the deadline to four months by the end of the legislature. Persons who are directly beneficiaries of these benefits have the right to expect it and obtain it.

Mr. Speaker, we can only support this proposal to shorten the time to process applications for allowances, especially for persons with disabilities. By doing this, you are nowhere but committed to doing so, to put everything in place concretely but also to compensate those whose time to process the file would be too long.

Ideally, I agree with Mr. Aries and Mr. Prevot: The fate of the records of persons with disabilities should be the same as for any social insured, that is, it should be processed within a maximum of four months. I will not judge what was adopted in a committee in relation to this ideal standard, being informed of the difficulties this administration has to face: there is a shortage of staff and despite the restructuring, there were organizational problems in the management of requests. I know there is still a lot to be done. I would like to reduce the processing time of these files as soon as possible, if possible before 2010.

I was not able to participate in the discussions in the committee, because I was retained in the Health Committee. I would just like to emphasize the need to strengthen and ensure that the displaced antennas of the administration are aware of all the elements, give the right directions to those who address them regarding the content of the dossier, be available to general physicians, specialized physicians, families who must fill and insert documents, so that when processing the dossier, it is as complete as possible.

It is also necessary to insist that your budget resources are revised to increase. With little time to reach this goal, the 2009 budget should already include an increase in your envelope to cover the costs inherent in the increase in the number of staff members needed to process the files within the specified deadlines. There is no miracle! There is a dysfunction of more than ten years, or even more, to recover. This will not be done by a simple finger crash.

Also, I hope, Madam, that you will defend this budget increase and that the other members of the government will agree to grant it to you.

As regards the transfer of information from the financial sector, it should, in principle, not take more than five minutes, from the moment when the processing of the files is computerized and the commitment has been made for the process to be conducted in this way. The same applies to the connection with Banque-Carrefour. A series of data is also automatically integrated.

We will need to insist on collaboration with regional agencies, which work with people with disabilities, as they have files, sometimes for a long time, and offer complementary aid. It would be interesting to use their data in addition to those provided to you by people.

Furthermore, the amount of the integration allowance should be dissociated as soon as possible from all other incomes of the disabled person and his/her cohabitant. The integration allowance covers disability costs and is completely alien to other income. This would represent a considerable savings of time in the processing of the files.

Given the promises made by the various majority-member parties, I invite you to claim the necessary budgetary resources, so that this proposal can be realised in the course of this year.

Mrs. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, CD&V is pleased that we can take this step.

At that time I asked how long those treatment periods were. I had to find out then that sometimes it was still about an average of nine months. That is, there are much shorter but also much longer deadlines. The six-month period is an important step.

Thanks to your invitation, we have been able to see how the administration is doing its best to handle those requests quickly, in part thanks to the computer science.

I think it is important to look at the reasons why those deadlines are so long. We have learned that this is often due to people submitting incomplete data, but also by the medical world – the doctors, the studies that still need to be done. All of this makes something last longer.

We also remembered that thanks to the computerization and linking of data from taxation and social security, the shortening of that period is realistically possible. I think it’s important that we can give a realistic signal and not fool people that their file will be effectively handled within three or four months when that’s not the case.

We need to go further and link the databases to each other. It would be ideal if certain treatments could be automatically passed on to those whose situation and medical data are known with certainty.

This is an important step. It is up to us and above all to you to follow up on this and ensure that this happens effectively within the four months and in the longer term even faster.

I would like to make a brief speech from my bank.

We discussed this project in the Social Affairs Committee. The aim is to reduce the time to confirm a disability because for those people already in a delicate, difficult situation, this entire administrative procedure is even more burdensome than for everyone.

In our view, this project is of paramount importance for people with disabilities who appeal to the administration of the Black Virgin in order to obtain an allowance to help them live their disability.

We support your project, of course. It is important that there can be a clear and quick response. We vote today to shorten this period to seven months from 2009 and to six months from 2010.

As my colleagues have said, if it is still possible to go further, to shorten this deadline even further, why not! This must be technically possible. The proposals of some colleagues went in this direction and further shortened the deadline. However, we must be reasonable and above all not throw dust in the eyes of those people who are experiencing a difficult situation, making them believe that the deadline can still be shortened. If we can do it in the future, I will be happy. However, the administration must follow up and there must be a greater modernization of the administration to make it even more efficient and to shorten those deadlines, if necessary.

Today we are taking a step in the right direction! We all call for a shorter deadline. It is one thing to vote today on a shortening of these deadlines, yet they must be respected. People who suffer, people with disabilities, would obviously be terribly disappointed if this was not the case. If, from a legislative point of view, we can go even further in the future, so much better! This goes hand in hand with modernization and increased efficiency of the administration.

Your role is to ensure that these deadlines are met in the coming weeks. You have our support for this project! We discussed this in committee; the deadline is balanced and reasonable. Let us not anticipate and try not to go too fast! The worst thing is that these deadlines will not be met in the future.

Also on behalf of our group, I would like to remind you that our group has already long since submitted a bill to reduce the deadlines to four months.

We must be much more ambitious than the ambition that the draft submitted by the Senate emphasizes. However, the opposition will act constructively. After all, the design is going in the right direction. The eight-month period is reduced to six months.

We will support the draft. However, we will continue to pursue you with the compelling request to work out the matter and to come to a shorter deadline. It is about the weakest in society. It is not normal for people who are weak in society to have to wait so long for a benefit or recognition of their benefit.

So you have our support for now. However, we want to go much further. Our own proposal will last up to four months. It is good that we still pay attention to this.

I will address Mr. President. Joel to prevent him from voting in knowledge of cause right now.

For the precision, following your intervention, the bill that is submitted to us aims to provide for a six-month processing period from 2010. This is not the version aimed at shortening already, through an intermediate step, in 2009. This was a previous text, but not that of Ms. Secretary of State.

by Mr. Arens offered four months. It is easy, I would like to offer two months!

In my opinion, you must have misunderstood me: I actually mentioned the fact that Mr. Arens and I had proposed four months; we know why this is not possible at the moment. That is why we join the proposal of the Secretary of State, calling on her to continue the effort to finally reach this four-month deadline. I can easily repeat what has been said.

Simply, in your speech, you said that the project on which we will vote proposed a positive solution given the reduction of the deadlines to seven months in 2009 and to six months in 2010. I simply drew your attention to the fact that it was not this text there, but six months in 2010, without specifying an intermediate step for 2009.

The issue was discussed in the committee. You have been clear, Mr. Jeholet as well. There is no need to start a ping-pong game after your intervention.

Mr. Speaker, we support the draft law of Mrs. Secretary of State, but it is true that we did not support the proposal of the CDH in commission.

The discussion was long and interesting in the committee.

However, to answer Mrs. Gerkens, I will add that this bill goes hand in hand with a quality plan, filed for the administration, a quality plan that increases staff by ⁇ 10%. In this staff increase, local medical antennas were not forgotten: in each of the nine medical antennas of the country, a new post is created. This is the medical assistant: it will enable users to frame in the composition of their medical records, a common cause of delay.

In the improvement of the proposed service, I noticed an increase in the number of staff members and a reinforcement of the antennas. They are really the place where good records will be developed, which will greatly accelerate the process.

However, I believe that these resources are not yet sufficient to ⁇ the objectives. Thus, as much as I appeal to your ability to mobilize the other members of the government and to continue to mobilize the administration, I also appeal to your partners in the government, including my neighbor Mr. Jeholet, in order to support the call for significant financial resources – Mr. Reynders hides – indispensable for achieving the goals we will adopt through this bill.

I think I remember the discussions and the numbers. In addition to all this, we will still need more or less sixty people to ⁇ proper functioning. Therefore, there is only to release the means and everyone would agree to release them for this purpose.