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Finland Organization of the Welfare System
In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Social Affairs and
Health
directed the welfare system through five departments:
social
insurance, social welfare, health care, temperance and
alcohol
policy, and labor. According to Finland's administrative
tradition, it is the task of a ministry and its
departments to
determine policy, which is then administered by central
boards.
In the case of social policy, there were three central
boards for
social welfare, health, and labor protection. An exception
to
this administrative division was the Social Security
Institute,
which supervised the national pension plan and health
insurance
for the Eduskunta and the Council of State.
The actual supplier of social care was local
government--the
municipality--supervised by authorities at the provincial
level
who had to approve the administrative plans of
municipalities
before these local governments could receive funds from
the
state. In the early 1980s, funds from the state made up
about 30
percent of the monies spent on all social services and
pensions,
while employers supplied about 40 percent; local
governments, 15
percent; and the recipients of services, the remainder.
Data as of December 1988
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