Turkey’s Integrated Social Assistance Service Information System (ISAS)

Turkey’s Integrated Social Assistance Service Information System (ISAS) is an e-government information system that electronically facilitates the management of social assistance programmes in the country, including registration, identification of eligibility, enrolment, disbursement of funds, M&E, communications with citizens and auditing. It therefore performs a Social Registry function and an Integrated Beneficiary Registry function, while also supporting further operations along the delivery chain.

The system is managed by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies (MoFSP) – created in 2011 to reduce fragmentation in the social protection sector – and is implemented across 1,000 locally based Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundations (SASFs). Defragmentation is also at the heart of ISAS, which was developed to ensure a standardised, integrated and electronic system for applying for, and benefitting from, assistance. For this purpose, the system was iteratively and incrementally developed with the help of the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Institution (TÜBİTAK, a public agency) between 2010 and 2015. It is designed to enable inclusive and continuous registration, and has also proved flexible/adaptable in terms of supporting refugee populations (via a separate emergency programme). Developed iteratively over the years with continuous improvements and integration of new functions (via new ‘modules), ISAS is a fully integrated system, enabling a wide variety of functions and building on a strong underlying National ID system to enable interoperability.

In order to perform its functions, ISAS integrates data from 22 different public institutions, leveraging the country’s national ID as a unique identifier (including the Ministries Interior, Finance, Health, Labour and Social Security, Education, the Turkish Employment Agency, and its Land Cadastre). It also shares data with 3 Banks (enabling payments), with the Turkish Red Crescent (enabling cooperation), with Municipalities and local SASF offices (supporting implementation) and with citizens (strengthening accountability and access). Overall, the system provides 112 web-based services in one easily accessible online portal and manages data on more than 37 million citizens (46% population). Data security and privacy concerns are integrated in system design, with measures including different authorisation levels for data access, Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology, two-factor authentication processes and logging of all transactions, encryption of data flows and security measures for physical hardware.

Since its introduction, the ISAS system has become central to the delivery of social assistance in Turkey. It operates across all social assistance programmes and the average daily number of citizen queries to the e-Government Gate is 9,000. In recent developments, ISAS and its underlying capacity has also been used to support the delivery of the largest humanitarian cash transfer in history: the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) for refugees. More generally, ISAS has reportedly reduced the time and costs of delivering assistance (e.g. time from application to disbursement from 1.5 years to one month and 2.3 million fewer documents processed per month.) and supported a more transparent, holistic and streamlined management of beneficiaries – and their households – across programmes.

As with any project of this entity, the ISAS team faced several challenges during implementation. These included: a) data sharing across public institutions (due to data politics, but also lack of technical interoperability); b) updating legislation and rules at the same speed as the IT system itself; c) reflecting institutional reorganisations and new programmes within the system. These issues were tackled via strong coordination, ongoing communication and capacity building, and an iterative approach to software development.
The total estimated cost of ISAS development was US$13.1 million, an amount that was kept relatively low thanks to the use of TÜBİTAK to develop the system and provide ongoing maintenance. Moreover, some of the ‘efficiency’ gains discussed above have helped to offset these costs, including a 10 percent reduction of ‘duplicated’ benefits. The risk going forwards, of course, is the use of ISAS primarily as a tool for rationing assistance, rather than an instrument to truly support a commitment to Universal Social Protection. Current developments are encouraging, with ongoing integrations into ISAS of a case management and referral system, a business intelligence system to inform the development and placement of new social policies and programs, and a portal for online applications. Overall, ISAS has created a more transparent and efficient way to target, deliver and monitor social assistance benefits.

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Componente
Coordination and Delivery Systems