Scope of the Law and Key Concepts
The law on social assistance applies to persons with special care needs permanently residing in Georgia on a lawful basis, to extremely poor families and to homeless persons, unless the same law provides otherwise. A beneficiary is a recipient of social assistance, and social assistance is a benefit of any kind, monetary or in kind, intended for a person with special care needs, an extremely poor family or a homeless person. An extremely poor family is a person or circle of persons permanently residing in separate living premises, running a joint household, whose socio-economic indicator is below the level set by the Government of Georgia. That indicator is measured through the assessment system — the system by which a family's socio-economic condition is evaluated and its level of wellbeing determined.
Among persons with special care needs the law recognizes, in particular, orphaned children and children deprived of parental care, persons with disabilities, and adults deprived of family care with limited self-care ability. Disability status is granted to a person in accordance with the Georgian law on medical-social expertise. A child left without a breadwinner is the child of one or both deceased parents until reaching the age of 18. A homeless person is a person without a permanent, defined place of residence who is registered as homeless in the municipality. On behalf of a family, the request for social assistance is submitted to the competent body by the family's authorized representative — an adult capable member of the family or a person entrusted by the family, who also manages the relations with the body.
Types of Social Assistance
The law defines six types of social assistance. They are not interchangeable at the beneficiary's discretion — each type has its own conditions and rules:
- subsistence allowance;
- reintegration allowance;
- foster-care remuneration;
- family-care remuneration for an adult;
- in-kind social assistance;
- social package.
A foster parent is a foster mother or father who, on the basis of a contract concluded with the state, provides living arrangements and care for a person with special care needs who is not a member of the foster parent's family. Foster-care remuneration serves precisely such an arrangement, while reintegration means the return of a person placed in a specialized institution to the biological family or to the guardian-carer for residence.
Subsistence Allowance — Who May Claim It and Under What Rules
The subsistence allowance is monetary social assistance intended to improve the socio-economic condition of extremely poor families identified through the assessment system. The right to request it belongs to the family — the request is managed by the family's authorized representative, and the decision is based on the result produced by the assessment system. The amount of the subsistence allowance is determined by the Government of Georgia: the law itself does not state the sum, and it is fixed by a government act.
As for the administrative procedure, the rule and conditions for the appointment, suspension, renewal and termination of the subsistence allowance, as well as other relations connected with its payment, are regulated by the minister's order. This means that the specific deadlines, the list of documents and the periodicity of renewal are established by that order; to determine them precisely, refer to the official information of the Social Service Agency — the service within the ministry's system that administers assistance.
The Amount of the Disability Social Package
For persons with disability status, the amount of the social package is determined in accordance with the calculation rule and conditions established by the law. The starting point is the base social package amount, determined by the relevant legal act of the Government of Georgia. That base amount is then increased, and the scale of the increase differs by category.
For persons with profoundly expressed disability status and for children with disability status, the base amount is increased by the sum of 80 percent of the arithmetic mean of the real GDP growth indicators for the last 6 quarters and the average inflation indicator for the last 12 months, but by not less than 25 GEL. For all other categories of persons with disability status, the base amount is increased by the average inflation indicator for the last 12 months, but by not less than 20 GEL. The increase therefore follows the economic indicators and is calculated under two different formulas depending on the category.
An additional calculation rule applies: if the increased social package amount is less than a multiple of 5, the amount is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5. The final payable sum is thus always a multiple of 5 — if the formula produces a figure just below a multiple of 5, it is automatically raised to the next one.
Beneficiaries' Duties
Social assistance is not only a right — it comes linked with duties. The person — family — seeking social assistance under this law and the beneficiary are obliged to observe the rights and duties provided for by the relevant legislation. This general obligation translates into concrete requirements when assistance is granted and when its conditions change: the rules established by legislation apply, and their violation becomes a ground for suspension or termination of the allowance in the manner set by the relevant normative act.
General Principles of Appeal
If you believe that a decision related to social assistance infringes your rights, the law records a simple and clear starting point: a person has the right to apply to a court for the protection of his or her rights and freedoms. The second provision of the article on the general principles of appeal has lost force by decision of the Constitutional Court of Georgia, so the operative starting point today is the right to apply to a court. The time limits and other procedural details of the appeal are determined by Georgian legislation.