Modernization of the social service system in the context of innovative development of the Russian Federation: mechanisms and barriers

The most important condition for the successful innovative development in Russia is acceptance of the introduced reforms by the population and their understanding that these transformations entail improvement of the quality of life and growth in the level of social well-being. The quality and accessibility of social services are important components of social welfare. The system of social services currently existing in our country needs modernization which would include increasing the availability of social services, development of competition for the quality of their provision and extension of the range of services rendered to citizens. The subject matter under research in this paper is mechanisms and barriers of the social service system modernization in the context of the principal directions of Russia’s innovative development. There appear to be two main mechanisms of modernization: inclusion in the social services system of such entities as socially oriented non-profit organizations and development of social entrepreneurship that could extend the range of social services available to the population and compete for the quality of their provision. Special attention is paid to the analysis of interaction between governmental and nongovernmental social service entities. The empirical research combines quantitative and qualitative methodology, since a number of phenomena (e.g. social entrepreneurship) represent an exception rather than a rule, and therefore they are of particular interest. Among the main barriers to the modernization of the social service system, there are both administrative barriers and the ideas and beliefs prevailing among the population (distrust of NGOs; low level of awareness of social entrepreneurship; reluctance of managers to register their organizations as providers of social services; low civil activity of the population in the regions of the Republic; concentration of non-governmental social service entities in the territory of the Petrozavodsk city, with the problem of access to social services being most acute in rural areas).