STATE SOCIAL SERVICES: FROM EVOLUTION OF THEORY TO THE PRACTICE OF QUALITY ASSURANCE

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of issues related to the development of ideas about the provision of social services as a fundamental function of the modern state. The authors consider the stages of the evolution of scientific thought on the social essence of the state, as a result of which social services are viewed nowadays as a key condition for a decent life and sustainable development of the whole society, and not just as a way to support the most vulnerable social groups. Nowadays, the state acts as a mega-regulator, which is called upon to provide quantitative and qualitative characteristics of social services. However, the challenges of modern post-industrial society demand a revision of the role of centralized state regulations in the social sphere. The authors attribute the ineffectiveness of a prescriptive state quality management of the social services to a complex socio-market essence of the social services and the mixed nature of the provision - state guarantees versus the imperfect nature of market competition. The independent assessment, according to the authors, acts as an effective feedback mechanism needful to optimize the sphere of social services in the interests of consumers of specific territories. One of the key problems is the lack of regional communication between the introduction of independent evaluation and consistent measures to improve the work of social institutions.