Anti-discrimination Undifferentiated „implementation federalism“ The AOB regrets that the efforts to enable nationwide harmonisation of this matter has failed and repeats its reservations concerning the prevailing provisions. The question as to which persons have to undergo mandatory mass screening according to scientifically based criteria does not justify randomly differentiated “implementation federalism”. Gaps in receiving basic social services Move of persons entitled to basic support to Vienna In the year under review, a large number of complaints were submitted to the AOB about cases in which vulnerable foreigners requiring assistance did not receive any support under the Basic Provision Agreement for months after moving from Lower Austria to Vienna. No update of Ministry‘s data network The payments for accommodation and food made by the Land Lower Austria were stopped when the affected persons deregistered from basic welfare support in Lower Austria. However, these people remained health-insured within the framework of the Lower Austrian basic welfare support, because of the lack of information on where the persons have moved to or on the fact that they had already applied for basic provision in Vienna with the Vienna Social Fund. In this way, gaps in medical care and additional cost in the case of a necessary treatment should be avoided. In the information data network of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the affected persons were still marked as “active in the Lower Austrian basic social welfare system”. However, one and the same person cannot be registered for basic provision in two Laender at the same time in order to avoid double payments. Since the records in the information data network of the Federal Ministry of the Interior were not updated due to the failure to forward the information on the registration of the affected persons in Vienna, there were considerable gaps in the payment of benefits owed to them. Basic Provision Agreement requires legal security for those affected The Federal Government and the Laender have drawn up an agreement on joint measures pursuant to Article 15a of the Federal Constitutional Law to provide temporary basic welfare benefits for vulnerable foreigners requiring assistance in Austria. The aim of this agreement is the nationwide harmonisation of basic welfare provisions. This should be carried out on a partnership basis, help to avoid a regional overload and provide legal security for those affected. Pursuant to Section 4 of this agreement, the Laender shall feed the federal information data network with relevant data as soon as possible. Benefits have to be paid in timely manner It is clear that a person cannot be registered for basic welfare provision in two Laender at the same time. However, it is not allowed that this regulation results in people who are entitled to benefits being refused the payments owed to them for months. It is important for vulnerable foreigners requiring assistance that they receive the benefits on time and have clarity about their situation and their legal rights. Problems with the use of data from the Federal Ministry 44

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