Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2007, published 97th ILC session (2008)

Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) - Isle of Man

The Committee took note of the detailed report of the Government provided in 2006 together with the reply to the Committee’s previous direct request.

Part IV (Unemployment benefit). With regard to persons protected under Article 21 of the Convention, the report refers to two schemes: contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), which covers employees, and income support, including income-based JSA, which covers residents whose means during the contingency do not exceed prescribed limits. The Committee notes that the replacement rate of the income-based JSA for the standard beneficiary may attain 94.6 per cent, while the rate of the contribution-based JSA only 28.2 per cent of the wage of an ordinary adult male labourer, well below the minimum replacement level of 45 per cent established by the Convention. The Committee further notes that the provisions in the Isle of Man concerning JSA are the same as in the United Kingdom, where the replacement rate of the contribution-based JSA represented in 2006 only 27.13 per cent. The Committee is concerned over the fact that the rate of the contribution-based JSA since its introduction in 1996 was consistently kept lower than the minimum standard of the Convention established as far back as 1952. It finds such a situation where persons entitled to contribution-based benefits receive benefits so low that they would be better off on social assistance in defiance of the basic logic and principles of social insurance. As the contribution-based JSA does not ensure the level of protection required by Part IV of the Convention, the Government is asked to state in its next report whether it intends to comply with its obligations under Part IV through the Income support scheme alone.

Part VII (Family benefit), Article 44 (total value of benefits). In addition to the detailed information on the amounts of family benefits paid out in 2005 found in the report, the Committee once again asks the Government to indicate also the total number of children of all residents in the Isle of Man, without which it is still unable to calculate the total value of family benefits under this Article of the Convention.

Part X (Survivors’ benefit), Article 62(a) (level of benefit). The Committee notes that the calculations made in the report compare the benefit composed of the weekly payment to a widowed person (£82.05 personal benefit) plus child benefit for two children (£39.00) with the standard wage (£298.06) without child benefit. Recalculated in relation to the standard wage plus child benefit for two children, the replacement rate for the standard beneficiary would attain only 35.9 per cent, which is below the minimum level of 40 per cent prescribed by the Convention. The Committee would like the Government to indicate what measures it intends to take in order to attain the minimum level of the survivors’ benefit fixed by the Convention.