Hsinchu County Government’s Social Affairs Department rolled out the Smart Social Welfare Jumpstart Platform last year. This platform provides the public with functions to search for social welfare resources and qualifications. So far, the service has benefited more than 6000 people. Today (Oct. 29th), at a results presentation press conference in the County Government main hall, four new online application services were announced: Disabled parking permits and renewals; rehab bus scheduling; low-income funeral subsidies; and injury/disease medical care and nursing subsidies for low and middle-income people. The platform also added a remarkable 100 searches for social welfare benefits. All this means the public no longer needs to spend time and money to visit in person; instead, members of the public can use the platform to apply from home.
As Secretary-General Chen Ji-yuan introduced, County Magistrate Yang Wen-ke is helping build Hsinchu County into a smart city. In addition to adding the four new services to the Smart Social Welfare Jumpstart Platform this year, the Social Affairs Department has also purchased three standing electronic kiosks. These make it as easy to use as ordering at a fast-food restaurant, helping elders who are unfamiliar with cellphones or computers to easily do their applications electronically and stay on top of their personal social welfare resources. The plan is for the kiosks to be placed in the Social Affairs Department main hall and in the Zhubei and Xinpu Social Welfare Centers, and there are plans to continue adding more kiosks in the future.
Li Guo-lu, Social Affairs Department Director, stated that this platform will provide smart social welfare services. This will mean improvement for the phenomenon of County social welfare resources being spread over a wide area; and the inconvenience of the in-person waiting process will also be improved upon. Reinforcing convenience for the public in searching and applying for social welfare will help achieve the goal of “Time savings, convenience, and service that never quits”. In the future, the Department will work hard to expand the population benefited by the platform to include the elderly and children.