AI in e-Sociala program - Optimization of the social benefits tranfers

This information was sourced from the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (2026): PSTW: Public Sector Tech Watch latest dataset of selected cases. [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/JRC.J1MWC9R PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/e8e7bddd-8510-4936-9fa6-7e1b399cbd92. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

In 2010, the Slovenian government introduced the e-Sociala (e-social services) program to optimize social transfers, such as social and unemployment benefits, child benefits, subsidies, etc. that make up the welfare system. The system consists of many connected databases (Ministry of Public Administration, 2009) and was designed to optimize the work process for social workers, evaluate their work, and prevent errors when processing applications for social welfare. The system has been upgraded since its introduction and that it now includes AI, ADM, and machine learning capabilities.

For example, citizens can use ADM to learn their social rights and see a prediction of benefit payments so that they can make an informed evaluation and calculation before applying for social benefits. Furthermore, the application processes for several social rights/benefits is fully automated, e.g., to research previous decisions related to social benefits and to see new (informative) ones for particular applicants. E-sociala can also detect people from the same family and access their financial information, thereby simplifying the process for social workers.

The goal is to further automate the process so that the system can create a full “social rights profile” for every applicant. The system will then be able to see what benefits a particular citizen is eligible for, for how long, and for what amount of money. For legal reasons, social workers still need to personally evaluate, print, sign and send every application. At the moment, the process still requires some manual (human) intervention which is recorded and analyzed in order to improve the system and prevent errors.

Budget: Not disclosed