Requirements and Policy Directions of Welfare Service Delivery

Social welfare service delivery needs a very complex consideration in order for the recipients to utilize their desired services in an easier, more sufficient way when in need. The distribution of welfare allowances has to comply with the purpose and standard of the corresponding institutions since the resources are the public one. In particular, the delivery system is deeply related to the demand changes both quantitative and qualitative resulting in the changes of welfare institutions including the forms and level of allowances, the scope and characteristics of recipients, and the method and process of delivery. The desires of each recipient exceedingly vary and hardly allow predicting any changes. Thus, the reform of the delivery system demands to take into consideration various interested parties, organizations and personnel, culture and awareness, and budget and institution, which is always difficult.

The welfare policy in Korea has substantially improved, in particular, for the last 10 years. The accumulated economic, social and demographic changes since mid-2000s were behind the institutionalization of social welfare services. This, in turn, has interconnected with the trend of localization and decentralization creating the necessity to reform the welfare administration and public welfare system. The paradigm of the social welfare is moving from the public assistance to the expansion of social welfare service. The detailed changes are following:

First, the principles of efficiency, competition, autonomy, and "private sector first" expand into the social welfare area. The supply side of social welfare service shows a major change since it provides the social service voucher, expands its investment into the community social service businesses, and markets the social service. Against the backdrop of localization, the role and power of the central and local government has been adjusted through the welfare planning by the local governments, the transfer of welfare budget to the local governments and the evaluation reforms. The administration efficiency is also being enhanced based on the computerization. For instance, the installation of Social Welfare Information Management System has led to reorganization of a more efficient implementation structure for the public sector and continued to expand to the related private sectors.

Second, the characteristics and managing principles of welfare institution have changed. In the process of the expansion of social welfare, the universal welfare has attracted a bigger attention and the social service policy based on the social investment has grown. The welfare policy involving working (Workfare or Work-First) seems strengthened as the working poor increases. Due to the various demand and the growing institutions and suppliers for welfare service, the integrated service is required to be provided. There is also a growing need for the performance-based welfare management and proof of responsibility.

Third, governance is required. The supplier-based-and-top-down policy making in the welfare is making way for the procedure-oriented one where the suppliers, the interested parties and the recipients collectively build consensus.

Fourth, the user-centered service is highlighted. While the preemptive and comprehensive approaches and the tailored services are highlighted on the policy side, what is required for its review is whether the service is tangible on the user side. What is needed for the user-centered delivery reform is to detect the detailed and complex desires of the recipients, to design and deliver the corresponding services to them, to locate the available resources for connected utilization, and to confirm the service is being provided according to the initial plans and intentions.

In the social welfare area, the previous scope of responsibility of public policies has expanded, and, as a result of that, the social welfare system in Korea based on the single public assistance is evolving to provide plural public allowances. The service exclusively provided for part of the underprivileged is growing to a universal one. In these processes, the services requiring cooperation between different departments (job and welfare, health care and welfare, education and welfare etc.) are in growing demand.

The growing demand for welfare delivery reform is closely related to the institutionalization of social welfare service.

Unlike the delivery system of public assistance, it strongly reflects the nature of the human service so that the professional management knowledge is needed to efficiently address it. The social welfare service is always provided with limited resources and, thus, the efforts to maximize the efficiency of the utilization of resources are very important. Also needed is the various organizations and program vision to enhance the accessibility of the targeted population. The managers of social welfare administration are required to confirm the responsibility through evaluation and continuously feed back for organizational changes (Young-jong Kim, 2010: 376~377).

However, the previous social welfare service in Korea let the government plan the undertaking and the private welfare institutions carry out it. The local government was only allowed to supervise them based on their facility management and budget allocations. In its process, no one was concretely responsible to detect the desires of the recipients and support the entire service provision.

The government has recently deployed over 900-strong personnel on the private contract basis and conducted

the Case Management on Family at Crisis project. This is regarded as a new approach to strengthen the public responsibility responding to the necessity of social welfare support and, accordingly, its purpose is welcomed.

However, there are concerns about it that it creates an overlapping issue with the private welfare institutions' case management. Also required is an integrated system covering the work process of the social welfare professionals at the local governments.

The closely connected projects such as Dream Start for Children and Case Management for self-support, which are previously installed, have to be included under the comprehensive support programs for the public policy.

Most of all, based on the above-mentioned changes, the social service delivery demands the following requirements:

First, properly oriented to human service;

Second, sensitive to the desires of the recipients and easy to utilize;

Third, able to provide the various allowances and services tailored to the desires of the recipients;

Fourth, intended to enhance the efficiency through the integrated service and management system;

Fifth, creating the environment where various parties in the private sectors and local communities actively engage in the service; and

Sixth, securing responsibility on the human resources for the service provision and management of personnel, finance, projects and recipients.

Therefore, the main challenge is to create an environment for the social service delivery where the administration can select the recipients for the cash allowances in an accurate and effective fashion, detect the comprehensive demands from all the different recipients and provide an integrated and flexible service. For that matter, the following has to be reviewed in the first place.

First, the welfare administration of the local government, which has concentrated on the distribution of allowances and the asset survey, can change to the service-oriented one. The reorganization of separating the distribution of cash allowances and the welfare service can be reviewed. In a broader sense, various reforms can be sought for: the existing public delivery system can remain unchanged while its inside divisions and work assignments is to be reorganized; a new delivery organization can be installed, separated from or, integrated into the existing one. To decide, there are certain problems to be addressed. To begin with, while Social Welfare Information Management System leads the local government to manage all the welfare allowances of the related public agencies, the selection of the recipients for cash allowances and distribution of the allowances will more rely on the computerization system in the future. Next, the management system for the social welfare service is extremely scattered and, as a result, an integrated support to the recipients are not possible. For instance, Long-term Care for the Elderly, a core social welfare service, and Personal Assistance Service for the physically challenged, which is planned to carry out from the next year, are supervised by National Health Insurance Corporation and National Pension Service respectively. Lastly, the management of the less privileged who has difficulty in getting a job is shared by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affaires and the Ministry of Employment and Labor. It is recommended to refer to the advanced countries where they strongly try to connect the security of income and employment support into the frontline delivery system.

Second, the foundation for case management can be built based on the local community, following the strengthened function of service coordination in order to organize the demand and supply in each local community.

Recently, an integration of the community services is being considered for case management and network organization (Young-jong Kim, 2010: 116). In this context, the public responsibility management, which has played

a smaller role, should emerge and a method to build the public-private cooperation structure should be actively sought after.

<Table 2> Requirements and Tasks for Social Service Delivery Reform