Social services should be more efficient

The Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Finance pledged to increase financial input to broaden the fields of government-purchased social service works and to develop quality professional teams and agencies for social works, in a bid to meet the pluralistic demands of the people in social-service works.

Government-purchased social services can play an important role in aiding disadvantaged groups, and developing preschool education, public health, and so on. It is in fact more efficient for the government to buy these services from social organizations, especially in fields in which government departments cannot match social organizations because of the latter's flexibility and wide reach.

The input is limited compared with its positive outcomes. This kind of cooperation can also help raise awareness throughout society of the importance of social-service works.

According to the guideline issued jointly by the two ministries, this initiative is primarily to meet the demands of disadvantaged groups of people, such as migrant workers. The government will pay for the social organizations to help solve life problems with the people, such as, for example, employment, education of their left-behind children, and care for their aged parents.

As long as the government can make the purchasing process transparent and create a fair competition environment for social organizations, this collaboration program will certainly be popular.

The unnoticeable proposal of the two ministries actually presages profound changes in the governments' attitudes to social organization, society and governance. A clear labor division among different social sectors will certainly benefit everyone.

Translated from China Business News