Head of household: resolving the situation of reconstituted families (mother affiliated to CCSS / stepfather to SPME) with regard to social security

The High Commissioner was approached by reconstituted households, in which the partners were affiliated to two different social security bodies. Specifically, the wife was affiliated to the Caisse de Compensation des Services Sociaux (CCSS) and her new husband to the Service des Prestations Médicales de l’Etat (SPME). The child living in the household, from the mother’s first marriage, was no longer eligible for illness and family benefits owing to the adoption of Sovereign Ordinance No. 7,155 of 10 October 2018 on the granting of family expenses benefits to civil servants and officials employed by the State and the Municipality. This piece of legislation had, with effect from January 2019, altered the conditions to be met in order to be considered the head of household, notably by limiting this status to the father and mother of a child.  The two sets of regulations (covering the SPME and CCSS respectively) have not been harmonised or developed in a coordinated fashion, with regard to the way in which claimants acquire the necessary status entitling them to benefits. In view of this, and pending an overall reform of Monaco’s social security regimes, the High Commissioner recommended that a solution be found for these households, to allow benefits to be paid for the children concerned in a fair manner. The High Commissioner also recommended that a principle of subsidiarity be reintroduced into Ordinance No. 1,447, stipulating an exemption from the condition that only the father and mother may be considered as the “head of household”, so that in certain specific circumstances, a new partner is able to qualify their stepchildren for entitlement to benefits.

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