A Study of Service Channels for the Insured Persons under Article 40 through the Local Administrative Organizations

Abstract

This study was done in Thailand to study the service channels for the insured persons under Article 40 (IPA 40) through local administrative organizations (LAO) in accordance with the Thai Cabinet's resolution regarding the public services. It was a mixed study between the Documentary Research and the Field Study together with the Focus Group. It consisted of 180 participants including insured persons, labor volunteers, and social security network and community leaders. In addition, there were 58 interviewees including administrators of the LAOs who gave the data about the service channels for IPA 40, administrators of the Social Security Office (SSO) who gave the data about the service channels through the LAOs and the IPA 40. The data were collected by an opinion survey about guidelines of the services for IPA 40 through the LAOs and a form of structured interview and then they were analyzed in terms of frequency and percentage. The results showed that regarding providing the services for the insured persons through the LAOs, the SSO is required to  consider the following 3 elements: firstly,                 in terms of law, the issuance of required announcements should be done in compliance with the Act of Plan and Procedure Design for Decentralization to the LAOs, 1999 to enable them to have the authority to give the services for insured persons in accordance with the Article 40 of the SSO; secondly, in terms of the information technology(IT) system for the integration of the services among government agencies, the SSO must design the IT system for the LAOs so that they are able to link the services for the IPA 40 and thirdly in terms of the public relations to create awareness for people to access the services, the SSO  must create public relations media to create awareness and to train the LAOs’ personnel to understand the services for the IPA 40. In this regard, the services for the IPA 40 should cover 4 areas as follows:                  (1) registering service, (2) contributions payment service, (3) depository documents for compensation benefits under the Social Security Article 40 (4) public relations campaigns of the knowledge of social security coverage, Article 40, at the local level.