More than 94,000 applications for humanitarian benefits were received within three weeks of its launch by the Labor Office of the Czech Republic through a web application that we, together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MLSA), designed and put into operation in record time without entitlement to remuneration. The benefit is intended for citizens of Ukraine who came to the Czech Republic due to the war, to cover basic necessities.
"Above all, aid to refugees had to be provided quickly, so our greatest enemy was time. At the same time, the Ministry emphasized not only the possibility of electronic submission, but also the subsequent automated processing of applications. Thanks to the great commitment of colleagues in the development teams, we were able to put the application into operation within 10 days of the first meeting with representatives of the Ministry, ”says Vítězslav Ciml, CEO of OKsystem.
In the first stage, the possibility of submitting applications via a web application was made available, which immediately significantly reduced the burden caused by the influx of refugees at the branches of the Labor Office. Applicants with a bank account maintained at a Czech bank were subsequently allowed to pay the money without the need to visit the office. In the last phase, the application was connected to the national identity authority last week, which enabled the applicants to be unambiguously identified, thus completely automating and speeding up the whole process.
"Despite the enormous burden that labor offices now face, we manage to pay benefits in a matter of days. I am very pleased that we managed to launch an application for handling the humanitarian benefit without any major problems in the pilot and subsequently full operation, "said the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Marian Jurečka. To date, applications for financial assistance have been submitted for more than 164,000 people, but the crisis scenario envisages up to 600,000 potential claimants.
The creation of an application for applying for humanitarian benefits is just the tip of the iceberg of the extensive package of adjustments and changes on which we are cooperating with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in connection with the crisis in Ukraine. The payment of refugee benefits required a number of necessary adjustments to the ministry's related agenda systems, which we made at a record pace. In an extremely short period of a few days, we also adjusted the Emergency Emergency Relief (ILO) benefit for refugees at the beginning of March. 120 thousand Ukrainian citizens took the opportunity to apply for this one-off benefit within a few weeks. A solidarity application for households housing Ukrainian refugees was also launched this week.