Social Order as a Condition for the Development of the Service Sector in the Regions

In recent years institutionalizing of non-government social services providers is increasingly becoming a worldwide spread practice to enhance the efficiency of the public social services provision. The Russian Government regards social order as an innovative tool to advance the quality of public social services delivery in the regions and optimize budget costs. Despite growing recognition of the significant role of the public and private sectors cooperation in public social services delivery, little is known about how social order impacts on the public social services market in the regions of Russia. The purpose of the current study was to assess the prospects for the introduction of social order based on an analysis of the attractiveness of the public social services market for non-state providers, based on factor analysis data of the level of competition and the maturity of the social services market. In order to determine the prospects of social order as a tool for the development of the public social services sector, it becomes necessary to assess the level of competition and maturity of the service market in the pilot regions of the Russian Federation. The following research question was posed: are there any conditions for development of real competition between public and non-government service providers at the regional public social services markets? Based on the factor analysis data the attractiveness of markets for the entry of non-state executors in 5 pilot regions was analyzed. The results showed that there are conditions for the development of competition between suppliers in part of the analyzed regions, which ensures an increase in the availability and quality of the provided services, and therefore determines the effectiveness of the application of social contracting. However, nowadays it is impossible to clearly assess the effectiveness of the application of social order and its impact on improving the quality and accessibility public social services due to the fact that only the second year of testing is underway. In addition, the idea of using social order mechanism in organizing the provision of public social services does not find an unambiguous assessment by the population. In practice, experts identify several factors that limit the development of real competition between public social services providers, including, for example, the low funding standards, the emergence of practices of formal status transferring of state institutions to NGOs, and a potential conflict of interest between the authorized body as a founder of public social provider and as a body organizing the competitive provision of services. A more certain opinion can be formed after a case analysis of regional practices for attracting non-state providers upon completion of testing, based on which it will be possible to define the factors that determine the development of competition in the social sphere.