Проблемы и перспективы участия институтов гражданского общества в обеспечении качества предоставления государственных социальных услуг

Abstract

The paper examines problems and perspectives of civil society institutions in ensuring the quality of state social services as key function of a modern social state. In current conditions, social services are relevant not only to economically vulnerable social groups, but also to the greater part of society. They are called upon to provide each person with a decent life and sustainable development. Along with guarantees of provision, the state assumes responsibility for ensuring the quality of the provided social services. For this purpose, various mechanisms are developed, including those based on a recipient-supplier feedback. An independent assessment of the quality of social services is one of such forms of public control aimed at improving the effectiveness of socially-oriented institutions and organizations. The system of independent assessment of the quality of the provision of social services in the Russian Federation is developed jointly by state executive bodies at federal and regional levels. However, in most regions there is practically no link between the implementation of the independent assessment and activities aimed at both a modernization of organizations under the independent assessment and the improvement of the assessment procedure itself. The dynamic and complex socio-economic and socio-political processes that take place in the regions call for timely and targeted development of regional social projects, without which it is impossible to provide a high standard of living and sustainable regional development. The given work presents an example of a regional level analysis in one of the Russian Federation administrative subjects. The paper analyzes not only the general level, problems and trends of the provision of social services in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, but also controversial procedural features of the assessment specific for the region. Empirical base of the research is presented by materials of the independent assessment of the quality of social services provided by the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Care of Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The results of the analysis allowed the authors to state the imperfection of the mechanisms of the current system of independent assessment. In this connection, the authors developed a number of practical recommendations aimed at increasing the effectiveness the system of independent assessment of the quality of social services through participation of civil society institutions in development of relevant standards of the assessment.