Premises for Developing Social Services Market in Romania. Elements of Legislative and Institutional Reform

The present article examines the development of social contracting issue in Romania, in the context of public administration reform and de-monopolization of social services sphere. The social contracting is an application of public/private partnership, focusing on social economy and welfare services, but also an element of good governance reform. Since 1998 in Romania social contracting practice and legislation have been incrementally developed, covering all the social services types and representing a solid solution to increase the effectiveness of social services delivery and development.
The analysis highlights elements of good practice in implementing social contracting to central and local level, but also presents obstacles in the successful implementation of social contracting. The article call for attention of researchers and practitioners on a current contracting practices and problems in Romania: on the impact of competition for contracts (funding issues); the need for improved managerial capacity of governments (central and local) using market tools in order to increase the quality of social services delivery; the need for improved methodologies for monitoring and evaluation of services; the need for improved legislative framework.


Keywords: social services, public/private partnership, welfare services