Family allowance. Ombudsman warns against significant delays and requests that applications be examined swiftly

The Ombudsman has been faced with a growing number of complaints in relation to significant delays in attribution of pre-natal family allowance, as well as in the initial attribution or reassessment of the income bracket of the family allowance for children and young people.

In 2020 183 complaints on these issues were received and this year, by the end of the first half, the total for the previous year had already been exceeded, following the receipt of 196 complaints.

These delays compromise not only the timely receipt of the family allowance, but also the access to other social support addressed to needy families, namely, the School Social Action, the attribution of scholarships, the increase of the unemployment benefit and the social electricity tariff.

Given this context, on 11 August, 2021, the Ombudsman drew the attention of the Management Board of the ISS – Institute of Social Security, I.P., in order to adopt measures and procedures in order to ensure, in due time and given the proximity of the new school year, effectiveness in appraising and deciding on the requests that are still pending appraisal, or that are presented in the meantime.

The Ombudsman is still awaiting a response from the Institute of Social Security, IP.

The letter sent to the ISS Board of Directors may be consulted here [in Portuguese only].

Updated 16.09.2021. To read the response received from ISS click here [in Portuguese only].