Ideology and socio-cultural foundations of providing governance services

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Ideology and socio-cultural foundations of providing governance services

The basis of both public administration reform in Ukraine and the modernization of the economy is refocusing to service-oriented, providing quality services for citizens. This principle should be fundamental in developing a strategy to modernize the system of providing government services, upgrade their quality standards to meet public needs.

The idea of service state is a priority in the process of further integration of Ukraine into the European community. In our opinion, basis of its implementation should be scientific grounds and elaboration of mechanisms of formation and implementation of service-oriented public policy in various spheres of life - sustaining activity of society. The basic prerequisite for the effective formation and implementation of public policy should be consideration of the interests of certain social groups.

Brief Literature Review. Analyzing researches of scientists, who formed a new paradigm of service - oriented public policy, it is necessary to note the leading role of the German scientist E. Forsthoff (Forsthoff, 1938) [1; 2]. In1938, he proposed the idea of service character of public administration, which became later the basis of the theory of services. For the first time scientist substantiated the necessity to change the social nature of the modern public administration from «binding» to «service» [1,28]. Subsequently, in 1959 the idea was transformed into the concept of ensuring life-sustaining activity (needs) of society where management of service providing gets the name «positive (service) management» (Leistungsverwaltung) and became a basic function of the state and is considered as an integral phenomenon (social, economic, political, legal, etc.). E. Forsthoff determines that grounds of relationships in the sphere of positive control are mutual participation (teilhabe) of state and citizens in the process of service activities [2, 7].

Therefore, in management science, a new line of research and further scientific school are formed, best practices of its representatives formed the scientific basis for providing governance services.

In the Ukrainian scientific field individual researches of Mr.V. Kuybida [3], Mr. I. Rozputenko [4] were dedicated to issues of new ideology of public administration activities. However, a number of problems in this sphere needs scientific justification and practical solution, because the state omitted from the sphere of its influence ideological work, as Mr. I. Rozputenko notes. In his view, this applies to both public policy and national security, geopolitics and geo-economics, regional policy and local self-government and also European integration [4].

The purpose of the article is to explore the ideology of the governance services in Ukraine based on analysis of leading ideas of foreign and domestic scientists, and to consider the problem of implementation of state service policy through the example of the sphere of population employment.

Considering the contradiction concerning understanding by public authorities of the significance of governance services sphere in the concepts of traditional administrative management and the new public management, determination of the primacy of «service» or «welfare» state becomes a subject of discussion. Let's find out which one of these notions has a wider meaning in the aforementioned terminological field of research.

According to opinion of authors, service state, which service-oriented policy is formed and implemented in, is always a welfare state, because according to the service sphere the society appraises the sociality of public administration, i.e. services are provided social terms. At the same time, we have to note that services, which have solely social orientation, represent one of the varieties of services provided by public authorities, which are classified according to the sphere where these services are provided. However, welfare state policy may not be a service provision policy, if we consider support of social sphere as a duty of the state (on the basis of traditional paternalism). Therefore, within the context of traditional concept of administrative management, sociality of the state is ensured, first of all, by legislative acts and bylaws and activity of public authorities and bodies of local self-government, while services of public authorities become just one of the auxiliary functions of public administration; among them, the following remain base services: organization, planning, regulation, execution, coordination, control, etc. Innovations in е-Governance play only the role of service technologies for realization of its electronic provision.

Summing up the role of services of public authorities in a welfare state in accordance with the classical theory of administrative management, we'd like to cite the opinion of another Russian scholar, I. Bachilo, who considers that welfare state may be deemed as a service state only to a certain extent, if it doesn't exhaust the functions of public authorities that provide conditions for citizens and organizations to exercise their social and other rights [5, 7].

The concept of new public management gives services a very different role, according to it, provision of these services by public authorities is a base function of the state, i.e. any activity of the state is service - based. In other words, for implementation of service-oriented public policy all traditional functions of public administration are used or functions of public administration are identified with functions of governance services provided by public authorities. We deem governance services as the result of formation and implementation of a service-oriented public policy to ensure interests, rights and needs of both the society and the individual citizen [6, 128].

The notion «service state» does not have an established interpretation in Ukrainian and foreign science, but according to authors, we should agree with definition cited in K. Shadybekov's glossary of terms and use it in our further researches, namely «Service state is a model of development of the state, where the purpose of the state is considered via the provision of services to the society and individual». Service-based concept considers virtually any activity of the state concerning interaction with the society and individuals via the provision of management (public and municipal) services [7, 299-300]. This vision of the role of the state corresponds to existing European realities. For example, according to the French doctrine, the state occurs from a social agreement and legitimately exercises its powers via the civil service which provides services as everything performed on behalf of the state: conducts activity for the benefit of social interests and is regulated by provisions of law (from judicial proceedings to communal services and education). Governance services may be payment-based, free and subsidized [8, 289].

Similar to the French doctrine of service state, in German science the notion of social management services is traditionally used in the context of «good governance», where the functions of management of service provision prevail over the influence of the power. In Germany abovementioned idea of E. Forsthoff concerning service nature of public administration became the basis of this theory.

In general, in EU states, functions of ensuring life-sustaining activity are performed in conditions of freely competitive market relations, which contradicts the principles of the concept of welfare state which does not allow to delegate powers to provide services on behalf of the state to private sector of economy, and that inevitably leads to a crisis in the relationship between power and citizens. Unlike Ukraine, demonopolization/deregulation of management (public and municipal) services in EU states is done for cost cutting and simplifying the procedure of providing these services. If private sector does not manifest a desire of providing socially-important services, intervention of the state is necessary - from stimulation mechanisms to direct organization of service activity. It's worthy to note that according to the French and German doctrines of public administration, public authorities are fully responsible for the quality and effectiveness of social (governance) services, regardless of who is the direct provider of these services (public institutions, municipalities, nongovernmental organizations or private sector).

The ideology of service state has gradually become popular in the sphere of public administration in many developed countries of the world. Thus, service-based processes in the general European practice of social governance have expanded into activity of all EU bodies, necessitating unification of governance service provision processes. A new term was introduced in the sphere of electronic communications in 1992: «universal services», interpreted as the «minimum services of required quality, provided to any user at an affordable price» [12, 21-22]. Later, the European Interoperability Framework (EIF-1.0) [9, 17] approved the list of 20 base governance services which must be provided in electronic form in every EU member state (12 services for citizens and 8 for businesses); soon, it defined the main principles, ways and mechanisms of realizing functional compatibility for all European public administrations that provide services (EIF-2.0) [10].

Service-based approach to the essence of the state is related to such areas of optimizing the authoritative-legal activity as development of network forms of administrative interaction as part of development of the «policy network» which concept traces its origin to the theory of «inter-organizational» relations. The policy network concept changes dominating role of the state in development of policy, which becomes together with nongovernmental organizations (civil society institutes), just one of the subjects of its formation and implementation. According to this concept, public administration receives new conceptual meaning, its e is management, or even regulation of processes of establishing relationships between network members not in the context of elaborating strategy (policy) but for the purpose of approval of political decisions.

According to many analysis, service state and network methodology of improving managerial activity «correct» majority of existing shortages in bureaucratic management style, in particular, the peremptory way of influencing other people, pointing out the systemic deficiencies and practical problems in interaction between the state and the society in the traditional forms and technologies of management.

In the applied aspect a successful illustration of the practical implementation of the ideology of providing services in Ukraine, in our opinion, may be the sphere of employment. Ensuring of state guarantees concerning rights of citizens to labor and social protection against unemployment in difficult socio-economic conditions of the situation requires a new ideology of providing public services in this field and elaboration of new mechanisms of formation and implementation of service-oriented state employment policy.

Transforming the abovementioned theoretical principles and concepts in a practical level, it should be noted not only the social nature of the problem formation and implementation of service-oriented state employment policy, but its complexity. After all, the state ensures the implementation of policy in the field of employment by conducting tax, monetary, investment, budget, social, foreign economic and innovation policy [11].

As the service model of realization of state policy, as it was already noted, is considered through the provision of services for citizens, society, in employment sphere it should be realized through the provision of services aimed at enlargement of sphere of application of work, ensuring full and productive freely chosen employment and social protection in case of unemployment.

The key aspects, which are worthy to note in the context of formation of ideology of implementation of service-oriented public policy, are: purposeful actions of public authorities; choice of means, instruments to achieve defined goals and the ultimate goal.

Regarding the first aspect, effective state policy in the sphere of employment should promote rational use of labor potential of both an individual and society as a whole. The ultimate goal is such level of population employment that will ensure effective social production, meet needs of a particular employee, ensure observance of established by the legislation social guarantees, promote economic growth and development [11].

Regarding the second aspect, the implementation of service-oriented state policy in employment sphere requires careful selection of tools, mechanisms, instruments, achieving of productive employment. In addition, ways of interaction of state institutions with citizens and society become important.

Whilst the implementation of state policy in the field of employment through measures of passive employment policy (registration of the unemployed, providing unemployment benefits) foresees only responsibility of the state for its citizens in the labor market and is not aimed at increasing level of employment, the realization of state policy in the field of employment through measures of active employment policy (providing information and professional orientation services, organizing professional training, assistance in employment, promotion of self-employment and entrepreneurial activity of citizens, assistance in going into own business, creating additional jobs, organization of temporary public works) is aimed at regulating labor market, increasing employment. In the current imbalance in the labor market due to socio-economic crisis priority directions of implementation of service-oriented state policy concerning employment have to become active measures for professional orientation of population in order to coordinate professional qualifications of society's resources with needs of economy, vocational training - for ensuring their conformity, promotion of selfemployment and entrepreneurship in order to increase job offers in the labor market.

Service ideology of policy making in employment sphere, as it was already noted, foresees full responsibility for the quality and efficiency of public services. Therefore, priority activities, on our opinion, should be: individualization of approach in providing services for unemployed, employers, population (especially socially vulnerable groups: youth, internally displaced persons, men who returned from the war in the east and need to return to labor market, persons with disabilities); improvement of technology and methods of state employment service, introduction of modern approaches in service providing; effective use of ICT in service activities that will approach services to their customers, making them more accessible, increase volume of their provision.

In addition, the problem of responsibility for quality and efficiency of service providing requires strengthening of work concerning the formation and development of personnel resources, in the case of realization of service-oriented state employment policy - providing the state employment service with qualified, responsible personnel through their professional selection due to professional, important and personal qualities, training for using new technologies and tools of providing services for population.

Conclusions. At the present stage of reforming the system of public administration in Ukraine (in the context of new public management), governance services should play the role of a base function of the state, which means that any activity of public authorities on the behalf of the state is a service. Therefore, in order to form and implement a service-oriented public policy, all traditional functions of public administration are used for providing services by public authorities. Welfare state policy may not be a service providing policy, if we consider support of social sphere as a duty of the state (based on traditional paternalism). Therefore, within the context of obsolete concept of administrative management, socialness of the state is ensured, first of all, by legislative acts and bylaws and activity of public authorities and bodies of local self-government, while services provided by public authorities become just one of the ancillary functions of public administration.

In the overwhelming majority of countries of the world where the hierarchically built administrative management gives way to the new state management, functioning of «network states» is premature, because of impossibility of use of the solely communitarian concept of policy networks when the state, instead of exercising its powers via government institutions, will only regulate relations and relationships of all actors of service activity. Therefore, while building a service state, network principle of social management-based interaction must be considered as only a form of organizing managerial activity that permits to substantially reduce the costs of traditional political-legal regulation of social processes and ensure a more mobile interaction with civil institutes and organizations.

Example of ideology implementation of providing the management services in Ukraine in employment sphere of the population testifies that ensuring such approach requires careful selection of mechanisms, instruments, means of implementation of service-oriented public policy. In addition, an important prerequisite for effective implementation of the service ideology in this area is an adequate human resource of providing services. Ensuring this prerequisite foresees a fundamental professional selection and continual improvement of professional level of service providers.

References

1. Forsthoff, E. (1938). Die Verwaltung als Leistungstrager. Berlin: Kohlhammer [in English].

2. Forsthoff, E. (1959). Rechtsfragen der leistenden Verwaltung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer [in English].

3. Rozputenko, I.V. (2011. Revisiting the ideology of public administration in Ukraine. Scientific research on

public and municipal administration: collection of research papers, 2 Retrieved from: www.nbuv.gov.ua/old jrn/ Soc_Gum/Nrzd/2011 2/18. pdf [in Ukrainian].

4. Kuibida, V.S. (2009). New state regional policy: from theory to practice: collection of scientific analytical materials. К.: Edition «Kramar» [in Ukrainian].

5. Bachilo, I.L. (2010). Welfare or service state? Informational and legal aspect. Pravo. Zhurnal vysshej shkoly jekonomiki, 1, 3-11 [in Ukrainian].

6. Karpenko, O.V. (2014). Governance services in Ukraine: mechanisms of provision by public authorities. Kyiv: AMU [in Ukrainian].

7. Government and municipal administration: glossary. (2014). Bishkek [in Russian].

8. Van Lang, A. (2002). Dictionnaire de droit administratif. Paris: Armand Colin [in English].

9. European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment services. Version 1.0. European Commission. (2004). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Retrieved from: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Docd552.pdf? id=19529 [in English].

10. European Interoperability Framework (EIF) for European public services. Version 2.0 (2010). European Commission. Brussels. Retrieved from: http://ec.europa.eu/isa/documents/isa annex ii eif en.pdf [in English].

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