The head of Kela, Finland’s welfare and pensions authority, has delivered a damning critique of the government’s policies relating to the welfare of families, young people and children.
Liisa Hyssälä, speaking on Yle’s Ykkösaamu politics show, accused the government of failing to take responsibility for families and children, because of unclear divisions between the remits of different departments.
“The responsibility is spread out across different ministries. There’s no real political leadership,” she said.
Hyssälä, a former Centre Party MP who served as minister for social services and then health, called for a single minister to be put in charge of family-related issues. “This division of responsibility is not serving anyone, and isn’t fit for modern society,” she said.
Hyssälä also criticised government IT projects as another area which she said is lacking political leadership.
Political appointment
Hyssälä’s appointment to head Kela in 2010 was criticised by opposition parties as politically motivated. On Saturday the ex-minister called on politicians to look to more partnerships with private companies in the health and social services sector.
“I would have liked to see more adoption of the public-private-partnership model, but we haven’t had that,” she said.
She insisted the government’s controversial social welfare reforms could be a way of increasing the role of health insurance, and give patients access to treatments which would otherwise not be available in the public sector.
”Where will people get specialised care, if health insurance is scrapped?” she said.
Pay increases
Hyssälä also defended proposed pay rises of up to 20 percent for the directors of the majority taxpayer-owned energy company Fortum. The move drew stinging criticism from MPs including the minister for state-owned enterprises, Sirpa Paatero, when it was mooted in January. However Hyssälä, who sits on Fortum’s shareholder nomination committee and therefore oversees directors’ remuneration, insisted the increase was justified in order to prevent top staff being headhunted by other organisations.