URSSAF

The URSSAF (pronounced [yʁsaf]; Unions de Recouvrement des Cotisations de Sécurité Sociale et d'Allocations Familiales, meaning the Organizations for the Collection of Social Security and Family Benefit Contributions) is a network of private organizations created in 1960 whose main task is to collect employee and employer social security contributions that finance the Régime general (general account) of France's social security system, including state health insurance (Assurance maladie en France). They also manage two other salary deductions for the French Ministry of Public Action and Accounts: the Generalized Social Contribution (Contribution sociale généralisée, or CSG); the Social debt repayment contribution (Contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale, or CRDS: a contribution for the repayment of the French social security deficit). URSSAF employees are not, as commonly assumed, civil servants, and thus they are covered by the same employment agreements as other social security employees. Each organization is a private entity responsible for a particular public service and is headed by a Director. Each of them (including the national fund) is controlled by an Administrative Council made up in equal parts of managers and workers. The decisions made by the Administrative Council are monitored by the State, represented by DRASS (Directions régionales des affaires sanitaires et sociales, or the regional director for health and social matters). URSSAF organizations are spread across France to form a network totaling more than one hundred members (101 as of January 1, 2006), with at least one organization per department. Recovery decisions are subject to appeal in courts of general jurisdiction. URSSAF is supervised primarily by the Ministry for Social Security, and secondarily by the Ministry for the Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Service. The objectives of ACOSS (Agence centrale des organismes de sécurité sociale, or the central agency for social security organizations) have been recorded in...