Government Contracting Services to Social Organisations in China: A Review of Research for Future Enquiry

Contracting of social services has been adopted in China as an innovation in welfare provision. This article reviews the emerging literature on contracting of services to social organisations in China in order to identify lines of further enquiry. It reviews research published in the English and Chinese languages up to 2018. We identify three distinct narratives: public sector reform, improvement of welfare service quality and capacity, and transformation of state-society relations. We contrast the identified narratives with the empirical evidence produced for the Chinese case. We demonstrate that, despite contradictory empirical evidence, the premise that contracting improves public sector efficiency and quality of services predominates. The narrative that contracting transforms state-society relations is contested. This article contributes to the understanding of how contracting of services is justified in theory and practice, and proposes an agenda for future social policy research on contracting of services to social organisations in China.

Controlling Public Spending and Striving for Efficiency

Extensive welfare services require corresponding revenue. Large spending commitments imply that Sweden’s public sector finances are particularly sensitive to changing trends in demography and hours worked. A particular concern is that productivity growth in labour-intensive services is relatively difficult to uphold, the so-called Baumol effect. Increasing costs and spending pose a severe risk to the welfare state, but a risk that should be possible to handle. Though Sweden’s public finances remain among the strongest in the OECD, it will be a delicate balance to increase spending on welfare services at the desired rate. A continued focus on improving public sector efficiency will need to be coupled by a suitable balance between tax-funded services and parts that people will have to pay for privately.

Policy Instrumentation: The Object of Service Design in Policy Making

Service design, as a practice and an area of research, has been at the forefront of the debates surrounding innovation, technology, and organizational change. More recently, service design is deployed as a means to drive public sector efficiency and address the growing complexity of public service delivery. This article examines the application of service design to policy making in order to situate service design at the intersection of research on public services, design, and policy design. Furthermore, it will explore how conceiving of policy instruments as design artifacts might provide a way to think about the object of policy design and government action.

INSTITUTIONAL INCENTIVES FOR INCREASING PUBLIC SECTOR EFFICIENCY IN DECENTRALIZATION

In the given paper, the features of the influence of institutional incentives and power tools on the efficiency of decentralization in ensuring prosperity and in the context of economic growth are explored. The purpose of the given paper is to determine the instruments of government and to characterize the methods of using them to promote decentralization, as well as the mechanisms for financing local governments, the decentralization of information and to define their role in the application of market incentives for decentralization. To study the peculiarities of power tools and institutional incentives for decentralization, to determine the conditions for effective work of local government financing mechanisms, the benefits of information decentralization and types of market incentives, a methodology of desk research was used with analysis of the results of theoretical and applied research published in foreign literature. Secondary information has been gathered in the context of the experience of implementing reforms on decentralization of state power, the peculiarities of the institutional environment and the establishment of stimulating factors for increasing the efficiency of state power. Institutional incentives to increase the effectiveness of decentralization have a complex hierarchical structure, and their impact depends on many factors of local culture and management traditions. Decentralization of information and different market incentives may also have different effectiveness in their application. In any case, many changes are needed in the political system. In future studies, it is planned to focus on the peculiarities of decentralization in certain regions of Ukraine and to assess the state of implementation of the proposed mechanisms for funding local governments in specific circumstances.

Scientific approaches to the economic category «public sector efficiency»

The article investigates scientific approaches to the category of «public sector efficiency» that have been formed in foreign and domestic economic theory. The author substantiates the necessity of functioning of the public sector system of the national economy and evaluating the effectiveness of its activities. The author considers the first points of view in the scientific world of the physiocrat F. Kene, as well as representatives of the school of classical political economy W. Petty and D. Ricardo in determining the performance of government structures. We study the works of the founders of the concepts of effective functioning of activities in the market economy, including state organizations, such as V. Pareto, A. Pigou, J.M. Keynes, P.F. Drucker, and others. Modern concepts of the efficiency of the public sector of the economy in Western economic theory, developed by P.E. Samuelson, W.D. Nordhouse, R.A. Musgrave, J.E. Stiglitz, N.G. Mankyu, K.R. Mcconnell, and others. Analyzes the scientific approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of the public sector in the national economy domestic scientists-economists such as E.V. Balatsky, O.A. Kokorina, T.D. Romashchenko, Yu.I. Treschevsky, V.V. Lukyanova, O.V. Rudakova, E.M. Samorodova, A.V. Revkuts, S.R. Muravyov, etc. On the basis of analysis of scientific works the author has selected a targeted, cost management and production approaches to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the public sector. In the course of the study, it was concluded that evaluating the performance of the public sector of the national economy based on only two aspects is not appropriate, since it does not fully reflect the activities of all structural components of the public sector. The author believes that the structure of the public sector of the economy includes three main, specific and quite independent elements-management structures, state corporations and the «social sector of the state». Therefore, it is advisable to conduct a study of the efficiency of activity of the public sector of the national economy using a three-component indicator that reflects all areas of activity and aspects of its functioning.

Assessing the performance of Polish Regional Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management using DEA model

The public sector is under growing pressure to increase its efficiency. Expectations from the political authorities, local communities, stakeholders and media towards the public-sector entities are high. Modern management methods must be introduced to meet them. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is an important method used in comparative studies of public sector efficiency. Voivodeship Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management (VFEPWMs) are public entities that financially support actions aimed at environmental protection and water management. Their task is to acquire and redistribute financial resources to support projects related to environmental protection. VFEPWMs face the challenge of increasing the use of available funds and the efficiency of their use. The paper presents the use of DEA method — which is as a modern engineering management tool — to evaluate the VFEPWMs performance. In the DEA performance analysis of VFEPWM, it is assumed that each unit may be characterised by their input resources, effects, environmental variables and transformation processes that transform resources into effects. VFEPWMs have better performance if they transform resources into desirable effects (actions) more efficiently. The results of the conducted analysis allow comparing the performance of particular VFEPWMs, to identify model units and to develop benchmarking graphs. The analysis is performed not only to assess the current level of VFEPWM performance but also to acquire information allowing to remove inefficiency.