Joint Statement of the Mayors of Budapest "Social Policy in Budapest at the Turn of the Millennium"
Having studied the medium-term technical paper on the social policy development of the capital city and having agreed with it, we, the mayors of the 24 local governments of Budapest have established that there are tasks which can be and should be undertaken mutually in improving the social situation in Budapest. On behalf of our joint responsibility, we make the following declaration.
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The social problems of Budapest—the mutual problems for all of us and easing the social tensions—are mutual tasks for us.
In order to make sure that Budapest should provide a real home for its citizens, we shall make joint efforts to make sure that in the formation of the social conditions of the town, improvement of the social position, the large groups and institutions as well as businesses of the population, religions and civilian organisations should be actively involved. Within the scope of our own local governments and the co-operation to be formed, we shall try to make efforts that the local governments in Budapest should participate in these joint tasks. We shall try to make sure that the institutions of the local governments should utilise their financing opportunities sufficiently in the performance of social policy tasks. We shall try to make efforts that as a result of the inter-sectoral co-operation of the institutions of local governments and the activities of the various sectors, they can more successfully contribute to the solution of social problems.
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Formulation of conditions for joint efforts subordinated to the mutual interests of social policy with respect to the political, technical, institutional and competent sovereignty of the participants
We accept the main principles of the institutional structure formulated during the past few years but we are also aware of the fact that whatever the competence regulations are, there will be gaps and overlaps in the area of which we can only find a solution with a joint agreement. In the area of social policy tasks, we accept the directions and the framework of such agreements as well as the objectives of the technical concept.
The acceptance and approval of the technical concept also declares our obligations related to the fact that the preparation of the agreements and the drafting of the agreements shall involve active work and tasks for us as well but in this activity we cannot do without the contribution of the elected officials, other officers and social policy experts either.
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Co-ordination tasks in the social policy of Budapest
We consider necessary that the social policy institutions and services should be more transparent and crystallised for both social policy as well as the clients applying for services. In order to achieve this objective, we consider that joint efforts are necessary in
- the simplification, harmonisation and rationalisation of the assistance procedures and assessment of entitlements;
- the formulation and enforcement of the system of conditions protecting the rights of the clients of social services and guaranteeing those rights;
- in the creation of conditions for the harmony between the primary care forms and special services in the various regions as well as distinguished distribution of work;
- the formulation of the conditions of the principles of inter-sectoral co-operation and administration and financing with special consideration to co-operation in social policy, health care, education, employment policy and child protection;
- definition of the contents of the various service types, their technical and financial criteria and formulation of the administration conditions which are equally sensitive to technical contents and economic conditions (financing, settlement and quality assurance, etc.);
- regulations enforcing, in a controllable way, the technical and political expectations in a transparent way, specifying the content and the procedural framework of agreements with non-governmental organisations and enforce in the working organisations in local governments.
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Outstanding support for the poorest group, easing the exclusion from the society and marginalisation and strengthening the social integration within Budapest.
We consider that it is our moral obligation to use our financing, human and institutional resources and provide increased assistance to those social groups the members of which are the poorest and are in the greatest need for support. Services to these groups involve responsibility which exceeds or moral obligation inasmuch as services to these groups practically fall within the scope of competence of the local governments entirely. In order to ease poverty, we shall try to make efforts so that
- the grants should be aimed at the poorest even more effectively,
- special care should be provided for the poverty of children and young people providing an opportunity for the poorest children to participate in education by offering them at least one meal a day and the educational instruments,
- we should support the self-organisations of the poorest and marginal groups, their interest representation opportunities, and through special programs we should make them available the services and advantages which are otherwise provided by the public service institutions,
- having assessed the resources of the local governments in a wide, in addition to their public administration role, as employers in their offices and institutions as well as market clients, they should also try and make efforts for the integration into the society of the groups in the most disadvantageous positions.
We shall try and use all the available instruments to fight against all kinds of discrimination and all types of racism. using our political and public administration means, we shall equally fight for the equal rights within the society of the discriminated groups and to make sure that the members of these groups can also be members of Budapest society with equal rights and dignity.
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Monitoring and evaluation
We also intend to monitor the implementation of our indicated objectives and we also intend to provide evaluation. With the involvement of the technical and social public, we intend to review every year the progress that we have achieved and, on the basis of thorough status evaluation, we shall also retain the opportunity to supplement, clarify and modify our objectives too.
In the formation and maintenance of the social policy co-operation between the 24 local governments of Budapest, we shall also ensure the presidents of the social policy committees of the boards of the local government boards about our confidence and we also expect them to constructively and effectively act in defining and controlling the technical and political contents of social policy co-operation.
Budapest, 1997