Comparative analysis of the social spending effectiveness (on the example of the Volgograd region)

In the article you are going to find the comparative characteristic of the expenses on the social policy and the comparative analysis of the indicators of prevalence and depth of absolute and relative poverty in the Volgograd region in comparison with other regions in the Russian Federation in the period from 2013 to 2016. It is known that the share of federal budget in the Volgograd region in the structure of funding sources for social spending is lower than its average indicator in Russia. The position of the Volgograd region among other Russian regions depends on the measuring method (prevalence / depth of poverty) and the kind of poverty (absolute / relative poverty). Method “data envelopment analysis” has showed rather high, but not maximal, efficiency level of social spending in the Volgograd region among others. Other regions' experience displays that it is necessary to decrease the depth of poverty in the Volgograd region, to increase the efficiency level of population's social support. Besides, the main opportunities to optimize the social policy in the region are related to the enhancement of monetary payments within the guidelines of the targeted social support measures, to the increasing the share of targeted support provided in natural form and to the tightening of the standards of the need and their compliance with providing access to social transfers.