Results of 2015: social policy in Russia

Recently, summing up the results of the year in the sphere of social policy, Vladimir Putin stated that the government has implemented all its social duties: “We have registered a natural population growth. It is a good index; it means people believe they have an opportunity to plan their families significantly; I am glad about it. 6.5 million Russian families received support within the program of the maternity capital. We will continue the program of maternity capital.” In 2016 the volume of the maternity capital will stay at the level of 2015, at 453 thousand rubles. “We have fulfilled our liabilities on indexation of pensions, according to the actual inflation of 2014; non-contributory pensions were increased by 11.4%. Social pensions were increased by 10.3% from April 1st 2015,” Putin said. According to the Russian Statistic Service's forecast, life expectancy will surpass 71 year in 2015.

Valery Ryazansky, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, thinks that it is very important that 2015 was devoted to combating cardiovascular diseases: “The main thing was to draw the attention of people to their own attitudes towards health. In addition, medicine pledged to seriously push forward the issues related to the creation of inter-regional and regional primary vascular complexes. Today, this figure has grown from 84 to 122. Literally over these last 2-3 years. And death rates associated with cardiovascular diseases decreased by 2.3% in the first 10 months of this year.”

Speaking about legislative initiatives on the labor and employment system, the senator said: “I would note here, above all, the commitment to creating the most favorable conditions for the combining by parents, guardians, caregivers, foster parents, who have underage children, especially children with disabilities, so that they can simultaneously combine these duties and be able to work.”

On social protection of the population, you know law 442, we developed it with the help of introduced changes. 35 amendments were received by the Federation Council from our committee.

In the field of tourism, Ryazansky pointed out initiatives related to additional opportunities of citizens for vacations, in case the employer will take advantage of those tax incentives. And this law will be considered in the near future.

“Interesting stories concern the expansion of our opportunities in the areas of resort and recreation, particularly Kislovodsk Park. The second object was put into operation, on which we worked, and which was under our supervision – a cascading staircase. And in the discussion of the budget for 2016, we are adding 150 million rubles for financing Kislovodsk Park to be put into the category of a National Park. Then it will be protected by the highest level of protection as a facility of an environmental nature,” the senator said.

According to him, this would protect the park forever from encroachment in terms of building of some commercial structures, on the one hand, while on the other hand the Ministry of Environment will have a legal basis to allocate funding for work on its maintenance and development.