Download Managing social welfare institutions – challenges of the 21st

SOCIAL ECONOMY AND POVERTY REDUCTION
14-15 October, 2010
Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities str. 20, Vilnius,
Lithuania
MANAGING SOCIAL WELFARE INSTITUTIONS – CHALLENGES OF
THE 21ST CENTURY"
Dr Anna Wisniewska-Mucha
Director of Social Assistance Center, District Zoliborz, Capital City of Warsaw
Key words: Social assistance, public management, external environment, strategy, strategic
management, social assistance institutions, social services, social services market, social
services recipient/client.
Social welfare is one of the social policy branches in Poland. Its character is quite
particular as its aim is to compensate deficiencies of other social policy subsystems. In the
course of the last decade, it acquired market traits as a branch of the service character. It has
its own structure, products, particular recipients and even the forming market.
At present, social welfare in Poland is undergoing fundamental changes, determined
by environmental factors. The most essential of the reasons of changes is the need of
rationalization of public expenses. In many countries, including Poland, authorities undertake
initiatives, which aim is to improve financial situation of public organisations by focusing on
the quality of services, market facilitation, inter-department cooperation, decentralisation and
good results orientation. Thus, numerous reforms in Europe, USA or Australia in the 20th
century, were based on the assumption, that one of the reforms conditions is introducing tools,
typical of business management.
Social welfare institutions are a very essential element of the social policy.
Institutional and legal means, which result from adopting a particular welfare model,
determine the level of such institutions’ independence.
Author's many years of experience in realising welfare projects and tasks, analyses of
many reference books and observations and research on social welfare institutions, confirm
the thesis, that models and solutions implemented in Poland after 1989, for social policy,
especially social welfare service, offer social institutions proper possibilities of activity on
market rules (at least at minimum level) and these institutions take advantages of such
possibilities, however at various extent. The above is strict with the new strategic thinking of
development directions for social welfare institutions and policies. Propagating market
models in the public sector should reinforce such way of thinking. Strategy and strategic
thinking and acting are the tools of modern social policy.
Strategy is one of the modern social policy pillars. Social welfare service is subject to
serious external influences. New trends in public management should verify currently used
methods of social service institutions management and motivate managers to look for more
modern means of managing. Strategic management methods should be more daringly
implemented in social service institutions. They are a great challenge for such institutions
now!