Russian Practice of Independent Quality Assessment of Social Services for People with Health Disorders and In Difficult Life Situations

The public control system of social services for sick and disabled people is improving in Russia nowadays. It is connected with the formation of public and trusteeship councils under public authorities and social service organizations. They are supposed to regulate and control social services. Emerging studies on the independent assessment of the quality of social services in the regions of Russia must be summarized and comprehended. It is obvious that the public control system in Russia is just beginning to form. Its normative basis includes the number of Russian laws that created the basis of social services for citizens in Russia. On their basis, with the executive bodies and institutions of the social services system in Russia, public and trustees’ councils with the functions of public control are created. The mechanism for implementing this independent assessment is generally defined in Russia today. The criteria for public quality control of social services in Russia are fairly transparent and provide an opportunity to compare the efficiency of single-type social services institutions. The analysis of independent quality assessment of social services in Russia shows that the quality assessment started in 2013 has produced positive results. Nowadays this procedure has been implemented in all regions of the country. In Russia there are still a number of shortcomings in methodological support for the implementing process of independent quality assessment of social services. There are many problems to solve for the heads of social service institutions. The assessment procedure has not been provided. There is no clear definition of the objectives of the entire procedure, no information on the mechanism. So the independent quality assessment system of social services in Russia is still developing.