Social security institutions are increasingly using technology and data to improve service quality and proactively expand coverage, going beyond organizational pressures to reduce costs. The first wave of digital transformation within social security institutions was centred around improving operational efficiency – understandably so given the growing demand for social services amid fiscal constraints. Consequently, digital initiatives focused on opportunities to streamline internal processes, improve staff productivity and rationalise costs.

More recently, there is growing shift in organizational emphasis on realizing the benefits that digitalization can bring to service quality. Digital technologies are being leveraged to provide personalized and responsive services, enable users to have greater control over their data and interactions with social security institutions, and enhance user experience and citizen engagement (UNU-EGOV and ILO, 2023).

As social security institutions continue to build digital solutions as part of their service delivery strategies, it is just as important that these services are built with the principles of inclusion and equitable access in mind. Ensuring that no one is left behind when services are digitalized requires strategies that highlight access, skills and an enabling environment that can help tackle digital inclusion challenges (ISSA and UNU-EGOV, 2022).

In tackling some of these challenges, countries in Europe and other regions have recognized the importance of leveraging customer-centric approaches with digital inclusion in mind (ISSA, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c and 2023d). The efforts have shown the importance of process transformation and automation for institutions to establish different approaches to providing services, engaging active communication, and strengthening outreach recognize the importance that these efforts have to be done with a focus on human and social rights.

The International Social Security Association (ISSA) supports its member institutions to leverage digitalization to improve service quality particularly through the ISSA Guidelines on Service Quality (ISSA, 2019). These guidelines set out a service quality model (Figure 1) and provide specific guidance on each of the components of the model.

Figure 1. ISSA Service quality model

• Service Quality Framework: This is the anchor around which objectives and stakeholder relationships are defined, with continuous service quality improvements that are also measured.
  • Voice of the participant deals with listening to demands and needs within the service ecosystem.
  • Product lifecycle deals with developing better products (benefits and services).
  • Service fundamentals deals with delivery excellence.
  • Measurement and feedback deals with evaluating performance on key performance indicators.  
  • Service culture deals with investing in staff so that service quality can be delivered.

Experiences of ISSA member institutions

The ISSA member institutions from Europe have been at the forefront of leveraging digitalization as a strategy to improve service quality. The Regional Social Security Forum for Europe, held from 16 to 18 April 2024 (ISSA, 2024a), highlighted the most recent advances made by countries in the region in this respect. Many of these advances can be consulted in the ISSA Good Practice Database.

Further, social security institutions in Europe recognize that technology alone is insufficient to provide quality service delivery (ISSA, 2024b) and have complemented digitalization with more holistic approaches to improve service quality. This has given rise to initiatives that range from new web service portals and full life‑cycle views of service delivery, to internal monitoring processes to ensure service quality. The following good practices illustrate how European social security institutions implement this complementary approach in order to deliver greater value to customers.

State Social Insurance Fund, Kazakhstan

The Social services portal was developed as part of the plan by the State Social Insurance Fund (SSIF) of Kazakhstan to ensure the rights and improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities (State Social Insurance Fund, 2024). A part of the unified information system of the social and labour sphere, this portal provides persons with disabilities with the opportunity to independently choose and purchase technical rehabilitation means (TMR) and services directly from suppliers. Previously, persons with disabilities had to apply to local executive bodies to receive these services. This created inconveniences for them and it took up to six months to purchase and deliver the ordered TMR. After delivery, there were risks that the TMRs did not meet the individual situation and requirements of a person with a disability.

The portal has reduced the time needed to provide the services, improved the quality of rehabilitation facilities and services provided, and enhanced the quality of special social services. A person with a disability only needs to register on the portal and recommended services are automatically displayed on their account based on registration processes already completed by service providers. After choosing a service, the order is made by signing the application with an electronic digital signature.

As of October 2023, the portal registered: (i) 864 centres for the provision of special social services, (ii) 493 TMR suppliers, (iii), more than 28,000 individual assistant service providers, and (iv) 706 sign language specialists. During nine months of 2023, the following services were provided through the portal: (i) 343,200 people received TMRs, (ii) 7,500 people were provided with services of sign language specialists, (iii) 25,500 people were provided with services of an individual assistant; and (iv) 56,700 people were provided with services of resort treatment.

State Social Protection Fund under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, Azerbaijan

The State Social Protection Fund (SSPF) in Azerbaijan introduced a system for the proactive assignment of social services to overcome a number of complexities with the legacy social benefits administration system (State Social Protection Fund, 2024). In the previous system, eligible beneficiaries had to navigate through various bureaucratic steps, filling in diverse forms, and often visiting several offices to ensure their applications were in order. These hurdles disproportionately affected the elderly and vulnerable sections of the population, who were the primary recipients of many of the benefits. Further, many applicants found themselves entangled in repetitive documentation processes. While the urban population had relatively easier access to resources and information, those in remote regions and vulnerable groups often found it challenging to access their rightful benefits.

The new system leverages data from various sources to proactively identify and enrol eligible beneficiaries. This shift from a reactive to a proactive approach resulted in timely execution of payments while promoting fairness and accuracy. The system is backed by a portal for citizens to verify their data, thereby enabling public oversight. The portal has seen 1.4 million registrations and reached nearly 72 million interactions, indicating a highly engaged civil society. Currently, all types of pensions as well as 49 out of 51 types of social allowances and stipends are proactively assigned to citizens. In early 2023, the proactive assignment system successfully catered to over 600,000 beneficiaries, indicating an 80 per cent uptake among the target group. Over the past period, a total of 4.2 billion United States dollar (USD) has been paid through proactive social payment assignments.

Social Security Institution, Türkiye

The Social Security Institution (SGK) in Türkiye sought to enhance the satisfaction of beneficiaries by transferring their central payments directly to their bank accounts, eliminating the need to visit branch offices (Social Security Institution, 2024). Central payments are cash benefits other than pension payments, such as funeral grants, marriage grants, etc. Prior to this project, it was necessary for beneficiaries to go to the Post and Telegraph Organization (PTT) to collect their payments. This system not only increased their costs of access but also caused congestion at the PTT branches. As part of the SGK’s broader digitalization strategy, the current project aims to achieve centralized integration with 17 banks to enable contactless payments. Integration work has been completed with eight banks from which approximately nine million beneficiaries receive monthly payments.

Federal Pension Service, Belgium

The Federal Pension Service (Service fédéral des pensions – SFP) is promoting online self-service for efficiency reasons. In this context, it took an important step to introduce digital mandates in November 2022, allowing citizens to request access to a friend’s or family member’s online pension file on mypension.be or to give access to their pension file to a confidante – a person they trust – to manage their administration (Federal Pension Service, 2024).

A digital inclusion barometer conducted in 2022 showed that almost one of two Belgians is in a situation of digital vulnerability. Beneficiaries had to manually hand their own eID and pin code to get help from someone. The new system of digital mandates precisely addresses this need, indeed in a more secure manner, thereby promoting wider adoption of digital self-service channels. In one year, close to 3,500 mandates have been created.

Based on the positive feedback, the SFP is investigating the possibility of expanding the mandate system to involve formal pension professionals. This upcoming feature would enable registered professionals – not just friends or family – to assist citizens with pension-related questions easily and safely, with full access to necessary information.

National Social Security Institute, Spain

The National Social Security Institute (Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social – INSS) introduced a biometrically-enabled app to receive proof of life from pensioners living outside of Spain (National Social Security Institute, 2024). Prior to this system, individuals living abroad were obliged to provide proof of life annually by visiting the Council for Labour. This system was burdensome for both pensioners and authorities, as the former had to travel a considerable distance, while the latter had to train and equip staff to deal with these manual cases. While it was possible for pensioners to share documentation by email, it created a potential risk for fraud.

The new app overcomes these challenges by allowing pensioners to provide video identification and share this information automatically with the authorities. The app aims to: (i) successfully collect proof of life documents each year for 91,000 people living abroad, (ii) carry out this process in the shortest possible time, and (iii) receive notifications of death through the year and thereby minimize risk of incorrect payments.

Results

Table 1 summarizes the results these institutions have been able to achieve through these good practices.

Critical success factors

Embedding institution-level initiatives with whole-of-government digitalization strategies has been key to ensure both technical success and widespread user adoption. In Belgium, The SFP reused a system developed by the Belgian Finance Department, ensuring that the technical implementation was not complex, as well as reassuring users since this was built upon a well-tested system. Similarly, institutions in Azerbaijan and Türkiye implemented initiatives as part of a broader national digitalization strategy, thereby benefiting from foundational technical systems as well as wider public outreach initiatives.

Iterative user-centric development is key to wider user adoption. In Azerbaijan, the proactive system first started with a pilot in 2019 covering 7 per cent of the beneficiaries. It has been progressively scaled up since then: 46 per cent in 2020; 54 per cent in 2021, and 72 per cent in 2022. The incremental expansion enabled the collection and incorporation of real-world user feedback. Similarly, in Spain, roll-out has been staggered across different geographies, as real-time knowledge and continuous updates on changes to how identification documents look in different countries is important to avoid verification failures.

Data security, both in terms of technical infrastructure and audit protocols, are important to secure user buy-in. In Belgium, systems have been built to be compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and security protocols are in place to ensure regular checks. In turn, these procedures build the confidence of the users in transitioning to the new system. In Azerbaijan, the extensive use of data and technology in this proactive assignment mechanism raises concerns about data privacy and security. Safeguards, robust cybersecurity measures, and compliance with data protection regulations are central to mitigate this risk. This is a key ingredient for success in Türkiye as well, particularly as the process integration involves entities outside the social security system, i.e., banks.

Significant investments into infrastructure and trained personnel are a pre-requisite to improve service quality through digitalization. Inadequate funding, infrastructure, or skilled staff can hinder the successful deployment of such a system. Careful planning and resource allocation were essential to overcome this risk in the case of Azerbaijan.

Digital inclusion initiatives have been key to the success of these good practices. While digitalization has been used to transform service delivery models, alternative non-digital models have been retained to leave no one behind. Each institution has taken a progressive digital transition approach where new models are complemented by digital literacy and outreach measures to enable the gradual phasing out of legacy delivery mechanisms.

Final remarks

Service quality-focused digital transformation in Europe has helped social security institutions provide more engaging user experiences, enable greater control and enhance responsiveness. They have also contributed to strengthening the inclusion and protection of vulnerable groups and individuals at risk of digital exclusion. This highlights that digitalization initiatives of social security institutions must not stop after having reached the majority of individuals but must go further and specifically focus on vulnerable groups.

Europe is not alone in taking important steps to use digitalization to improve service quality. Social security institutions in the Americas have also used technology and the ISSA Guidelines on Service Quality to improve services, build trust, and use user-centred approaches to address their member needs (ISSA, 2023b and 2023c). Digital transformation of social security institutions in Asia and the Pacific has also focused on delivering customer-centric services (ISSA, 2022). This is consistent with a global acceleration – in the four regions – for applying customer-centric design and agile methodologies that highlight service quality and delivery, leveraging design thinking approaches and technology (ISSA, 2023d).

Digitalization centred around service quality can support building better relationships between social security institutions and their users. By reducing the burdens of interaction through re-engineering, data exchange, simplicity, and user-centred design, the administration can respond to members’ expectations and needs in a more efficient and effective way. 

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