Applications for key social insurance benefits are being processed up to 70 per cent faster following the rollout of new digital services, Deputy Research Minister Nicodimos Damianou said on Tuesday.

The services now cover the paternity, maternity, childbirth, parental leave and funeral allowances, alongside a new insured profile giving members of the public a single point of access to their own applications and records.

Applications for disability pension, widow’s pension, disability allowance and benefits for people with thalassaemia can now also be submitted online.

Labour and Social Insurance Minister Marinos Mousiouttas described digital transformation as “an investment for the coming decades,” saying the changes translate into “fewer documents, less travel, faster processing of applications and a better service experience for the citizen.”

Labour Minister Marinos Mousiouttas

He added that “the real measure of the success of any reform is not how advanced the technology is, but how much easier it makes the lives of the people who use it.”

Social security, he said, is “one of the most important pillars of the welfare state,” and the aim of the overhaul was to redesign services entirely “with the citizen at the centre”.

He said the paternity, maternity and childbirth benefits had been progressively brought online over the past two years, with the parental leave and funeral allowances, neither previously available electronically, added most recently.

Damianou said the new system sits at the heart of the government’s wider digital transformation effort and is now being expanded to support the incoming pension reform.

He described the programme as “the largest and most extensive digital transformation programme we have ever implemented as a state”.

Damianou also referred to the move to electronic payment of social insurance contributions through the CY Login identification system, which continues to attract new users each month.

Acknowledging difficulties some had encountered making payments, he said district office cash desks would remain open and staff would continue to support those needing help.