The Ministry of Social Policy is launching a new model of social service in the regions, said Minister of Social Policy Yulia Sokolovska at the Assembly of the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities. The new model implies changing of the approach: "financing not institutions but services". In other words, the Ministry will in fact purchase services directly from local authorities. For these purposes, the budget of 2020 provides the sum worth UAH 150 million.

"From next fiscal year, we have planned in the budget UAH 150 million to provide convenient and affordable services to people in the community. We will open the front offices on the ground and will pay for each receipt of the documents. The front offices’ function will be transferred to CASPs (Centers for the administrative services provision), banks or private providers. The practice of financing services rather than government agencies has been successful in many European countries. Such a model will make the use of funds for social services and other kinds of services effective while improving the quality and efficiency of the very services for people," Yulia Sokolovska explained.

Background

According to the monitoring of power decentralization, more than 1,000 amalgamated territorial communities have already been established, with 11.2 million residents in them. Currently, we have 24 districts in Ukraine, in which 100% of the territory is covered by communities. As of January-September 2019, as a result of the reform, local government budget revenues had increased by UAH 131.1 billion since 2014. While the state support for the development of regions and communities has grown 41.5 times.