MANDATE of WORKING PARTY ON SOCIAL POLICY (2025-2029)
Extract from [DELSA/ELSA(2024)4/REV2] (Annex C.2)
approved by the Council in November 2024 [C(2024)74]
I. Objectives
1) The Working Party on Social Policy (hereafter the “WPSP”) shall assist and work on behalf of the Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC) as appropriate. It will address social policy issues that arise in the context of mega-trends such as demographic, economic, societal, labour market and climate changes, as well as policy challenges that require urgent social policy responses, such as pandemics, inflation surges and other developments – in line with the orientations provided by the 2025 Social Policy Ministerial meeting.
II. Working Methods
2) To achieve these objectives, the WPSP shall:
i. develop indicators, assess policy trends and measures and identify good practices in social policy, with a particular focus on protecting vulnerable groups, in areas such as child, youth and family well-being; gender equality and combatting discrimination; inclusion of people with poor health or disabilities; affordable housing and homelessness; ageing, pensions, and long-term care; tax-benefit policies as well as income distribution, poverty, inequality and redistribution, among other topics.
ii. support Members and Partners’ efforts to maintain, promote and sustainably finance universal access to adequate social protection, to implement effective social policy reforms, to promote information on and access to social programmes, and to foster well-being policies.
iii. monitor and assess new developments in social risks, trends in social spending, social data and indicators, as well as in the design of inclusive policy-making processes that involve stakeholders throughout the planning, elaboration, and implementation of social policy.
iv. provide guidance on the preparation of key publications such as Society at a Glance and Pensions at a Glance and initiatives such as the work programme on the Future of Social Protection, the Observatory on Social Mobility and Equal Opportunity and the Knowledge Exchange Platform on Well-being. This task may involve: a) commenting on proposed thematic directions and chapters, b) providing technically-oriented peer reviews of these reports; and c) assessing on behalf of ELSAC that the main policy findings are grounded in rigorous research and analysis.
v. provide advice and inputs on: the development of suitable indicators, for example in the context of the regular updates of databases such as the Social Expenditure Database, the Family Database, the Child Well-Being Data Portal and the Affordable Housing Database, as well as the biennial survey on Risks that Matter; tools for the analysis of social policy and social protection developments; reviews of well-being, inclusion and social mobility; the impact of policy measures; and the role of social and subjective factors in tackling inequalities.
vi. in view of the specialised expertise from Member countries, ad-hoc groups and informal meetings of national experts can be organised from time to time on specialised topics for the consideration of the WPSP.
III. Coordination arrangements
3) In order to efficiently implement its objectives, the WPSP shall:
i. collaborate as necessary with other bodies of ELSAC, in particular the Working Party on Employment and the Working Party on Migration, where there is overlap in the issues being considered;
ii. coordinate as necessary with other OECD bodies, such as the Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy, on topics of common interest in the area of social policy including through horizontal projects and exchanges of views on social policy issues; and
iii. cooperate as necessary with other international organisations, in particular the Council of Europe (CoE), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Social Security Association (ISSA), as well relevant stakeholders, in particular Business at OECD (BIAC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC).
IV. Composition
4) The WPSP is composed of delegates nominated by Members who are responsible for the design, monitoring and evaluation of social policies.
The mandate of the Working Party on Social Policy will remain in force until 31 December 2029.