On the 22nd of February the round table "Social services of service-providing CSOs in Kyiv" was held at the Kyiv City State Administration. During this round table social services for vulnerable groups of the population were discussed. Although the city has territorial centers for social service provision, according to a sociological survey (see the note), 44% of the respondents believe, that the state is not concerned about vulnerable groups of the population.
Public activists see the provision of services by CSOs as an alternative. For the support of local CSOs targeted programs have already been introduced. Those include “Social Partnership” and “Care”, which enable some organizations to maintain preferential rental of premises and and be provided with expenses for utility costs. But this is far not enough for continuous quality service delivery. In addition to the need of premises and basic financial costs, a staffing issue occurs: the number of social workers is decreasing, whereas the demand is increasing.
In August 2017, a new mechanism of social order was introduced in Kyiv, which provides for the purchase of social services from CSOs through a contract. According to its results in 2017, only 2 lots out of 6 received funds.
“The system is yet imperfect, - experts note, - the document submission procedure itself causes many difficulties. But today the Department of Social Policy of the Kyiv City State Administration, together with CSOs, is working on improving the mechanism of financing the social services.” In 2018, 2.5 million UAH is already planned for the purchase of social services through a social order from service-providing CSOs.
Unfortunately the problem of the quality of social services provision is relevant not only in Kyiv. Consequently, arises the issue of legislative regulation and the development of a regulatory framework, that would meet the needs of the present. This in particular concerns the introduction of amendments to the "On Social Services" bill, which has been under discussion in parliamentary committees for almost a year. The future law should regulate the issues of the cooperation between the state, the service providers and the recipients of the services. CSO experts note, that for the sustainability of the services, for the competitiveness of service providers it is necessary to work with social insurance and the method "money follow client".
Equally important are by-laws, including regulations for assessing the needs of the population. “Do not do for us without us” - say the clients of CSOs, who unfortunately are excluded from the needs assessment. The procedure of assessment of customers' needs today obligatorily concerns only the communal institutions. Other service providers, in majority, are not aware of the fact, that they can submit their own assessment results to local social policy departments.
CSO representatives admit, that they are willing to work, but they need the state support. "Only by joint efforts it is possible to achieve results" - summed up the participants of the discussion.
The discussion took place within the framework of the project “Strengthen capacity of CSOs in Georgia and Ukraine to contribute to the policy dialogue on Social Service Delivery” implemented by the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research in cooperation with the Arbeiter Samariter Bund - Georgia with the support of the European Union.
Note:
Social survey was conducted in 6 oblasts of Ukraine during the period of July-December 2017. The survey was conducted amongst direct recipients of social services (directly those in need of social services and their legal representatives), more precisely amongst persons with disabilities, IDPs and elderly people. The total number of interviewed persons is 465, of which 338 are women (73%) and 120 men (26%) aged 18 to 91 years.