Social protection

Disability allowance (nadomestilo za invalidnost) is paid 35% of the average net salary in Slovenia, updated twice yearly (€284.11 at July 2009).

Assistance allowance (dodatek za tujo nego in pomoč) may also be paid to persons requiring in performing basic life functions. The amount depends on whether the person needs assistance in performing all or most life functions. Accordingly, this amounts to 20% or 10% of average net salary. Since July 2009 the higher amount is €162.34 and the lower amount is €81.18.

According to the Pension and invalidity insurance Act, insured persons who become disabled may have obligatory health insurance covered from the state budget. Disability is defined in Article 60 as changes in health condition which cannot be reversed by treatment or by measures of medical rehabilitation that reduce the capacity of an insured person to secure or keep a job or to advance in career.

Invalidity is determined in three categories of capacity, in relation to the work that the person was ‘trained for', arising from work-related injury, occupational disease, illness or non-work-related injury. The person has right to vocational rehabilitation services pursuant to the Act.

According to the institute of pension and invalidity insurance of Slovenia, disability pension was being paid to 96,892 people in 2004 and 93,338 in 2008. According to recent evaluation, in 2007 the average pension was €446.48.

A monthly allowance for invalidity for physical impairment can be paid to persons insured at the time of impairment. There were 55,575 beneficiaries on average in 2007. In 2008 invalidity for employed persons ranged from €39.85 to €9564 and for unemployed person €27.90 to €6695.

Assistance allowance can be paid to persons who receive old-age, disability or widowers pension; blind and partially sighted persons who are employed or self-employed or receive pension; physically disabled persons whose mobility is reduced to 30% or less, but are employed for at least 20 hours/week.

In 2008, the lower amount was139,47 €, higher amount 278,94 €, and the highest amount for the most severely disabled (398,48 €).

A disabled person who is insured by the Institute for pension and invalidity insurance has the right to partial disability pension if he or she is no longer capable of working full time, but can still work at least 20 hours/week. In 2007 there were 6.057 beneficiaries and the average partial disability pension was €259.58. In 2008 there were 7,720 beneficiaries, with average pension €275.19.

Right to occupational rehabilitation, and allowance during the occupational rehabilitation: an allowance that the person is entitled to during occupational rehabilitation. In 2008 it amounted on average €403.23, 267 beneficiaries received it on average.

According to Parental Protection and Family Benefit Act (Official Gazette  RS, No.  97/2001) in addition to other rights, a parent who cares for a disabled child has a right to a part time job until the child is 18 years old. The state covers the difference to the full amount of social, health and pension insurance cost. The family is entitled to Care allowance for a child that needs care and protection (if the child is not in institutional care). In 2007 this was €90 (the lowest amount) or €180 (the highest amount). 

According to the Social Security Act (Official Gazette RS, No.  54/1992) disabled people are entitled to up to 20 hours/week assistance at home (pomoč na domu); institutional care; care and employment under special conditions (sheltered workshops); a family helper (družinski pomočnik), a new development since 2005.

The family helper is an alternative to institutional care and can be a person (a family member) who lives at the same address as the disabled person, is unemployed and a formal job seeker. Most often the person who becomes family helper is the parent. The state pays minimal wage and social insurance, but the disabled person looses care allowance and has to contribute his/her own financial sources or property toward the payment of the family helper. The local municipalities, which are obliged to pay for the family helpers, have limited resources and the number of family helpers has decreased in last two years. 

Rehabilitation and re-training:
There is a distinction between occupational rehabilitation and vocational rehabilitation. Occupational rehabilitation is a right for persons who became disabled while they were in paid employment and can either be trained to do the same job as they did before accident or illness, under new conditions, or be re-trained for a different job. According to the Pension and Invalidity Act, a person who became disabled at work is obliged to enter occupational rehabilitation if it is so decided by an expert body, otherwise he/she can lose a job.

Vocational rehabilitation is regulated by the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons Act and is the right of any disabled person. It is most often used by disabled people who have never been in paid employment or are unemployed.

Preferential employment and quotas:
In 2004 the Employment and Vocational Rehabilitation Act introduced a quota system for the employment of disabled people, employment companies and protected workplaces. Companies which employ more than 20 workers are obliged to employ persons with disabilities (the quota varies from 2-6 %, depending on the sort of business).

Invalid companies and employment centres are important employers of disabled people in Slovenia. In 2008 there were 167 Invalid companies employing 6,400 disabled persons. They emerged before 1976 with the establishment of Invalid workshops and were transformed into companies in 1988. After independence, when Slovenia turned to a market economy, the number of such companies drastically increased (mostly in 1993-94). They now employ almost a fifth of all employed disabled persons.

The number of employment centres has increased, from 18 in 2008 to 27 in January 2010, currently employing 249 persons.

Together employment centres and invalid companies employ 5,693 disabled persons (October 2009 - data of the Fund for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People), which is almost 18% of all employed disabled people.

Long-term support and care:
There are still a rather high number of disabled people living in six public care institutions (javni socialnovarstveni zavodi) and eight units for special forms of care for adults based within old people's homes. In 2008 there were 2,478 persons permanently living in so called ‘special public care institutions' (posebni  socialnovarstveni zavodi). There has been as small move towards deinstitutionalisation, with 2% less people living in the special public care institutions than in the year 2007 (an equal proportion of men and women).

The Resolution on the National Social Care Programme 2006-2010 (Section 5, Institutional care) included no plans to decrease the number of placements within the of the institutional care for children, adults or elderly with disabilities.  

One of the most important types of care and support, which has been extensively increased in recent years, is sheltered workshops/centres for protection and training (varstveno delovni centri). Some are part of special public care institutions where the residents permanently live and work, while the others take a form of a day care sheltered workshop.  The number of persons living/working in sheltered workshops has doubled since 2006 (from 1,587 in 2006 to 3,016 in 2008). In 2008 there were 3,016 persons living in sheltered workshops, 15% more than in 2007 (more men than women). The majority of people in the sheltered workshops in 2008 are not older than 45 years (81.7% of the total number), and the biggest group were aged 26-35 years (41.7%).

Since 2006 the government has been drafting a Long-term Care Insurance Law, which is expected to be finished in 2010. The law is supposed to make it possible for older persons and disabled people to live in the community instead of nursing homes.

Influenced by the strong advocacy of the disability activist organisation YHD, the government has started to work on a separate law on Personal Assistance, which would regulate all personal assistance, not only the assistance related to basic nursing needs, and based on the principles of independent living and self-determination. 

In 2009 the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Vocational Education and Training (Center RS za poklicno izobraževanje,CPI) started to develop a proposal for the establishment of a professional profile for a new registered vocation/profession of ‘personal assistant' (osebni asistent/asistentka) to be part of a new Law on Personal Assistance.