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THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL PROTECTION OF THE POPULATION AT THE MODERN STAGE: STATE AND PROBLEMS OF IMPROVING
Lieskova L. F.
Ukraine, Chernihiv, Chernihiv National University of Technology
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Received 14 November 2015 Accepted 25 November 2015 Published 30 December 2015
KEYWORDS
system of social protection, social security, social guarantees, social insurance, social assistance, social services
The basic classical components of the system of social protection in Ukraine are analyzed in the aticle. It is stressed that the sysnem has not taken its final form of realizing and is in the process of improving. The need for reforming the system that would meet the international standards and would take into account the national mentality is justified.
© 2015 The Author.
Problem setting. Social, legal state can't be built without a properly formed modern market relations, affect the establishment of the system of social protection of the population in a certain level.
The formation of a new model of economic development that is based on a maximum concentration of available resources, the economic growth of the innovative type, showed the need for the gradual abandonment of the archaic system of social protection that remained from a command economy.
An important condition for achieving the social stability in the society is the reform of the social security system, the main aim of which is to expand the social base of transformations by means of stabilization the living standards, reducing the burden of the consequences of the economic reforms for the most vulnerable sectors of the population, taking measures for the social adaptation of population to these transformations.
Without the development of the ways of achieving an effective system of social protection, which would correspond to the international standards, it is impossible to build a real and not a declarative social statehood in Ukraine.
That's why the study, generalization and the development of the recommendations and proposals for the solutions of the problems concerning the effective system of social protection of the population are of a special urgency.
Analysis of the recent research and publications. The problems of the improving the system of social protection of the population in terms of the implementation of the structural transformation of economy in Ukraine are viewed in the works of many scientists, such as: A. Aleksandrov, V. Skurativsky, C.Vegera, S. Cinchuk, S. Bandur, S.Bila, D.Boginya, T. Zayats, T.Kovalchuk, E.Libanova, B.Chernyak, A. Novikov, N. Bolotina, G. Pikalova and others. However, despite the intensity of the research in the sphere of social security, the issues regarding the determination of the main components and the features covering the formation of the working mechanism of the system of social protection functioning on the territory of our country.
The problems of the improvement of the system of social protection at the regional level are analyzed in the the studies of M. Bagmeta, O. Berdanovoi, N. Hrynchuk, O. Ishchenko, Y. Shkliarskogo. The issues of reforming the social protection from the economic science point of view are studied the works of N. Boretskoi, O. Ermolovskoi, O. Skomarohovoi. In these works the authors dwell on the socio-economic development of social protection in the conditions of the market
transformation of the economy. It is important that the social protection system is considered as an independent category and the main component of the social policy of the state.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the modern structure of the system of social protection of the population, to determine the main components of the current social security system in Ukraine and to define the main directions of its transformation in the model of the market type.
Introduction of the basic material. The creation of a modern concept of social protection is one of the most important problems of the reform in the Ukrainian society.
The negative effects of the socio-economic transformation which occurs without the necessary preventive mechanisms have led to a dramatic drop in living standards of the most part of the population in Ukraine. But the existing system of social security, created in Soviet times no longer meets the requirements of the present. On the other hand, the features of the contemporary socioeconomic situation of Ukraine do not allow us to move these or those activities automatically in our field of social protection, that successfully operate in the developed countries of the Western Europe and America.
In these conditions, however, the contradiction between the increasing needs of the society in a wide area, flexible scientifically grounded system of social protection and the absence of not only used mechanisms, and even the concept, i.e. a holistic idea of corresponding system of social protection of the transitive period, which in addition would take into account the national mentality.
The social protection system is a subsystem of the national economy, that is, phenomena, processes, activities, and objects that are related to the provision of life activity of the society, a person, satisfying their needs, interests. It is a system of principles, methods, established state social guarantees of the legislative level, and institutions that ensure the optimal living conditions, satisfying the needs of the population.
The current state of social protection of population in Ukraine can be characterized by the following features:
- extremely rapid growth in the cost of services that are provided by the institutions of the health, education, culture, that does not meet their quality;
- the extremely high level of participation of the state in the field of social protection, its extremely weak participation in the functioning of the population;
- a large number of legal acts that regulate the activity of the social protection system and in some cases contradict each other, that, in its turn demonstrate the inadequacy of national legislation;
- insufficiency of funds for financing activities in the field of social protection [6].
The system of social protection is connected with features of social organization, the purpose of which is to improve the welfare and living standards of citizens, i.e., social protection is a manifestation of socially oriented economy. According to S.Kalashnikov, socially oriented economy is a highly developed form of a market economy, allowing most fully combine the principles of a free market economy and a social justice. The author emphasizes that the main parameters of social protection depend on the parameters of the development of the society. This means that social protection is largely determined by the level and the quality of the development of socio-economic processes in the country.
In the social welfare system, the state plays an important role in the life of the people and is designed to reduce poverty by minimizing the social risks. This means that not only the socially vulnerable, unprotected groups, but also persons of working age, will require social security; that is, each person is the object of social protection throughout the life cycle. The social protection includes the measures varying from ensuring the survival of the individual groups of the population to the extended developing of the personality. Under the social protection involves two interrelated directions of the state actions: giving everyone equal opportunities for securing a decent life by his\her own work and supporting disabled and socially vulnerable groups of the population through the redistribution of revenue share of the able-bodied citizens. This causes differentiation of objects and subjects of social protection measures and mechanisms of public policy, sources of funding, development priorities.
Therefore, in particular the concept of reforming the policy of social protection of the population requires modification through the defining the qualitative parameters of the state regulation of social security under which the State acts as the main guarantor of life, and the effective functioning of the economic system and an active organizer and a coordinator of the economic effort, that in its
turn, determines the optimal goals and options of social development by creating the conditions and mechanisms for achieving them.
The need for a new concept of social protection is derived from:
1) a deep crisis (social, economic and political), which accelerates the elimination of the social security, left from the command-administrative system, where social security was public funding was mainly carried out from taxes and spending on social insurance were carried;
2) growth of social risks, caused by the processes of globalization, combined with market transitions;
3) need of considering of the socio-economic, political, demographic and psychological factors for the formation of a new concept of social security.
Therefore, the reform of the social security system in the direction of implementation the system of early finding persons and families who are in difficult life circumstances, the modernization of the system of their social services, improving the targeting and the quality of social services in the community is one of the strategic tendencies of the development and is aimed to improve the coverage of the social support of the underprivileged in the rational use of budgetary funds. The realization of this goal requires increasing the effectiveness of interagency interaction between the relevant bodies of state power and local self-government, coordinating their actions, that is, the introduction of an integrated system providing social services to families and individuals who need, it on the basis of uniformed minimum standards and the common technologies.
An important condition for improving the effectiveness of the social protection system in Ukraine is the transition from centralization to decentralization. This approach means that the state as a subject of social protection in order to ensure optimal coordination of national goals and interests with the peculiarities of development of individual regions should develop only a national philosophy, the basic principles of such policy, strategic directions of the regions activity regarding the regulation of social processes, coordinating activities in this area. At the territorial level, the main subject of the implementation of social protection should be the region that implements this strategy.
We can say that the role of the regions in addressing vital issues of social development lately has considerably intensified. A. Ishchenko, as aptly observes, regions stop being simple executors of the will and increasingly become fledged subject of public administration [7, p. 336.] Indeed, the problems of creating conditions for solving the territorial communities issues of their socio-economic functioning are being paid more and more attention from the public and the authorities. However, there is a tendency of still of the uneven economic development of the regions, and, namely their resources and capabilities to provide services to the social protection of the citizens. So, you should realize that decentralization is the future, it is a strategy of the European success.
Despite the fact that in Ukraine there is an extensive system of social protection of the population and, according to ILO (International Labour Organization) classification, our state is included in the group of countries with full social provision, this system does not meet the modern needs of the Ukrainian society and does not contribute to the accumulation of social and human capital. We have uneven location of entities providing social services (concentration in large cities, the fixed establishments); expansion of the population groups in need of social services (existing system services do not meet the needs of vulnerable populations); financial, territorial and structural barriers of access to social services and their low quality; the lack of choice of services and the supplier; considerable fragmentation of the subordination of social services among the various structures.
The factors that hamper the functioning of the social protection system in Ukraine include: the lack of standards of quality of social services; excessive dependence of local authorities from the decisions of the state level; in consistency of the various regulations that govern the provision of social protection and social assistance; inflexibility of irrational mechanisms for funding individual programs of social protection of the population; the lack of mechanisms to assess the needs of the beneficiaries of the services.
Ensuring adequate standards of every citizen is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine. Therefore, social protection of population as a tool improving the quality of life is the most important element of the activities of the Government and an indicator of the effectiveness of social policy of the State.
According to P. I. Shevchuk, the social protection system is designed to perform two basic functions:
- to understand how to mitigate the effects of poverty (rehabilitation) through the provision of short-term targeted assistance to the poor;
- prevent poverty (preventive function) that is achieved by the introduction of the terms and conditions for the participation of citizens in social insurance during his\her active period of life. The first function, usually, has the nature of passive support of those members of the society who for some reason find themselves in a difficult conditions; that helps them escape from poverty. The second is to protect the income of the individual and the members of her family in case of disability (due to aging, disease, disability) or losing the job itself; it is an active measure [12].
The system of social protection is a complex of state and public socio-economic measures that are legislatively fixed and they are the guarantees of material provision of certain categories of citizens in the event of the absence or loss of permanent sources of income.
An important component of the system of social protection of population is state social guarantees are established in order to ensure the constitutional rights of citizens to an adequate living. According to the law of Ukraine «On state social standards and state social guarantees», state social guarantees are the established laws of the minimum size of remuneration, established by laws, income, pensions, social assistance, other kinds of social payments and other normative-legal acts established by laws, which provide a standard of living not lower cost of living [5].
In turn, the cost of living is defined as the cost amount sufficient to ensure the normal functioning of the human body, saving his\her health, set of food products, as well as the minimal set of consumer goods and a minimum set of services required to meet basic social and cultural needs of the individual.
Under article 46 of the Constitution of Ukraine, law on social protection includes the right to security of citizens in the event of a full, partial or temporary disability, loss of breadwinner, unemployment coused by the independent circumstances, and in old age and in other cases provided by law. This right is guaranteed by the General mandatory State social insurance through premiums of citizens, enterprises, institutions and organizations, as well as the budget and other sources of social security; the creation of a network of State, municipal and private institutions for the care of the disabled. Pensions, other kinds of social payments and assistance that are the main source of existence, must provide a standard of living not lower from the subsistence minimum established by law.
The next classical part of the system of social protection of population is social insurance, the foundations of which was laid by the fundamentals of legislation on compulsory state social insurance, adapted on January 14, 1998 in our country. This law determined the principles and general legal, financial and organizational basis for the compulsory state social insurance of citizens in Ukraine. According to the Fundamentals, the mandatory state social insurance is a system of rights, duties and guarantees, which provides for the provision of social security, which includes the material maintenance of citizens in the event of illness, full, partial or temporary disability, loss of breadwinner, unemployment of these circumstances, and in old age and in other cases provided by law, at the expense of monitory funds, which are formed by the payment of premiums by the owner or the authorized organ , citizens, as well as budgetary and other sources established by law. The law also provides the following types of compulsory state social insurance: pension; in connection with temporary disability and the cost of burial; medical; accident at the enterprises and professional disease, which resulted in the loss of working capacity; unemployment and other types of insurance provided for by laws of Ukraine.
Social security is a part of the social protection system and performs the function of the accumulation and distribution of social security funds for social assistance payments, social insurance, etc.
The term "social security", was officially fixed in the International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 16 December 1966.
This term is used in the concept of the welfare of the population in Ukraine, approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine dated from 21 December 1993 [2]. However, is used in the Article 46 of the Constitution the term "social protection". The content of this article is that the term "social protection" is wider and includes the notion "social security".
According to the interpretation of S. Sinchuk and V. Burak, "social security is a form of distribution of wealth in order to meet essential individual needs of citizens upon the occurrence of social risk due to special social funds or at the expense of the budgets of different levels in the case of and the conditions set out in the law".
A special feature of social security is that it is a combination of the two aspects - economic and legal ones. In terms of economy, social security is an organizational measures of state in creating social funds and using them for their intended purpose. From the standpoint of law, the relations with social security are the object of influence legal norms.
The important components of the social protection system in Ukraine today are social assistance and social services. Social assistance is a set of measures that guarantee the family (person) address differentiated aid in especially difficult circumstances in the form of cash or non-cash monetary assistance, in the form of benefits, services, advice, consultations etc. The purpose of social assistance is to create the conditions to overcome difficult life circumstances and to provide opportunities of equal participation of individuals in the society. Challenging life circumstances are defined as lack of means for living, the inability of self-service, finding in the area of natural disasters, etc. Social assistance is a system of social measures the form of assistance, support, and services provided to individuals or groups, social services to overcome or mitigate the life's difficulties, maintain their social status and full of life activity, adaptation in the society. Social assistance may be provided in the following forms: cash (cash or non-cash); natural; social services at home or in stationary facilities; reduced fees for certain types of services. Social assistance as a component of social protection performs certain functions in the society. In particular, there are: 1) the function of direct social assistance, which includes: detecting, keeping families and individuals that are in a great need of social support; exercising material (financial, natural) aid in different situations stipulated by law); prevention of poverty; home services for families and lonely people, in need of outside care; services of stationary institutions; subsidies, etc. 2) the function of advice and information, which provides advice on various issues, as well as the study and forecasting of the social needs of the population. 3) function of the participation in the implementation of measures in emergency situations to overcome the consequences of natural disasters and social conflicts. 4) function of social rehabilitation and adaptation, the main content of which is to enable people to better adapt to the changed conditions of life and the social environment, finding their place in society. Thus, the concept of social assistance is quite multifunctional, it can be viewed as: 1) one of the components of the modern foundations of social protection; 2) is a highly social technology that enables effective social support for citizens in the face of difficult socio-economic situation that objectively violates life or group; 3) a principally important sector.
In order to improve the system of social assistance in June 2003, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law of Ukraine "On social services" [3] and in 2007 the Government approved a concept for reforming the system of social services. These documents describe the basic organizational and legal framework for the provision of social services to persons who are in difficult situations and in need of assistance. It is also important to aware the need in the course of the implementation of social protection, sustainable use of resources with the state, regional and personal levels. It should be noted that the notion "social services" has a fairly wide range of understanding and using. The subject of our attention will be those social services that are provided by social workers and connected with solving the difficult life situations of persons, their social protection, i.e. those ones in the above mentioned law of Ukraine "On social services". It is a common knowledge that the notion "service" has wearing an interdisciplinary character. So, identifying the economic nature of services, the scientists in the field consider the service as a product of a particular type of activity, the benefit that satisfies the needs of the individual, production, and the society, that has a consumer cost and value, the result of which could have a material and immaterial form. In the business literature it is indicate that the specificity of the content and form of social services determines their usefulness not in the material dimension, but in the activity one. The main features of the service are their intangibility, the inability to save, integration of their production with consumption, instability quality. Therefore, social services is a complex legal, economic, psychological, educational, medical, rehabilitation and other activities aimed at individual social groups or individuals who are in difficult circumstances and need assistance (hereinafter referred to as persons in need of social services), with the purpose of improving or reproduction of their life living, social adaptation and return to normal life. The main principles of the provision of social services is: 1) assistance to persons who are in difficult situations, they are not able to overcome by using existing capabilities; 2) prevention of the emergence of complex life circumstances; 3) creating conditions for the solution of vital problems that arise [3, 2]. The main forms of provision of social services are financial aid and social services. Financial aid is available to
persons who are in a difficult life situation, in the form of cash or natural: help food, means of sanitation and personal hygiene, child care, clothing, shoes and other necessities, fuel, as well as technical and auxiliary means of rehabilitation. Social service system of social action, which provides assistance, support, and services that are provided by the social services to the individuals or groups of the population to overcome or mitigate life's difficulties, maintain their social status and full of life activity. Social protection is carried out through the provision of social services: 1) according to the place of residence (home); 2) in the fixed boarding institutions and establishments; 3) rehabilitation establishments and institutions; 4) in day centers; 5) in institutions and establishments of temporary or permanent stay; 6) in the territorial centers of social services; 7) in the other institutions of social support (care) [3, 5]. Social services may be provided as a fee, and free of charge.
Thus, the provision of social assistance and social services is an important direction of the system of social protection of the population nowadays. It should be noted that there are a number of problems that affect the effectiveness of the provision of social services and benefits. In particular, lack of developing the system of methods, criteria and indicators, which characterize the efficiency of service and its satisfaction by clients. The network Imperfect of institutions and facilities, which provide services is imperfect, their level of coordination is insufficient, there are problems of financing industry. Therefore, the provision of social benefits and services should further improve, develop and reform according to the requirements and needs of the society.
In addition to the classic components (social guarantees, social security, social assistance and social services, social insurance), some authors include such modern systems of social protection: protection of the rights of the child; early immunizing; promoting education and raising the qualifications of the population; social work in dysfunctional families and with single elderly and disabled citizens; social services for disabled children; an active policy on the labour market; gender policy; training of social workers, etc. [12]. So, the final appearance of the social protection system in Ukraine has not received yet and is in process of improving.
The prospects of development of the system of social protection of the population, focused on the XXI century, are defined the concept of the social welfare of the population in Ukraine. In fact, development has been worked out a wide-ranging, comprehensive state program of social security. This program has been established in our country for the first time. It is designed to change the system of social protection of the population radically.
The concept of the social welfare of the population in Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in December 1993 notes that "in a market economy the source of welfare of citizens must be represented by the effective labor, labor activity and entrepreneurial initiative. The state should provide costs due to budget only the minimum guaranteed level of medical, cultural, community and social services and, above all, the least socially protected citizens due to budget "[2]. And it is the requirement of the Basic Law of the state is the Constitution of Ukraine.
Conclusions. Thus, the existing system of social protection of population in the state is at the stage of formation, reconstruction and improvement. The very important to realize that directions and effectiveness of social protection depends on many factors, among which a prominent place is occupied by economic and social resources of the state to monitor the social situation and the rapid response to urgent issues of the members of society, taking into account the demographic situation in the country, etc.
Limited financial resources in the state caused the need for the creation of an integrated system of social protection of the population, which is based on new criteria and approaches, the reorientation of social policy on a specific family, ensuring the rights and social guarantees provided by the family as the main unit of society. The key directions are deepening targeted social support for disadvantaged segments of the population on the basis of considering the material situation of families. The mechanism of reform of social welfare provides for the availability of the necessary resources, the establishment of management structures and relevant decisions.
But we must add that the social policy of our state today highlights the tasks to guarantee its basic principle, i.e.: under the conditions of market economy, the system of social protection of the population should act in the way that will provide those people who can and want to work, with such a possibility, and those who are insolvent - will be socially protected.
And, finally, it should be noted that the fate of Ukraine, its future depends on who we are today, what we will be tomorrow.
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