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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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From official supervision to self-monitoring
— privatizing supervision of private social care services in Finland | | Author(s) | Toomas Kotkas |
| Journal title | Social Policy and Administration, vol 50, no 5, September 2016 |
| Publisher | Wiley Blackwell, September 2016 |
| Pages | pp 599-613 |
| Source | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/spol |
| Keywords | Services ; Commercial care ; Private enterprise ; Policy ; Finland. |
| Annotation | In October 2011, a new Act on Private Social Care Services came into force in Finland. The Act included a provision on a 'self-monitoring plan'. According to the provision, providers of private social care services are required to draw up a self-monitoring plan and to follow its realisation. The plan must be kept publicly on view so that clients and their relatives can also keep an eye on the realisation of self-monitoring. In this article, self-monitoring is first explained, and then briefly analysed against the background of a wider theoretical discussion on accountability. It is argued that the introduction of client involvement in the supervision of private social care services represents a new mechanism of accountability that is typical of the Post-Keynesian welfare state. Because public authorities are no longer able to supervise the growing number of private social care service providers, the responsibility has been partly shifted to service providers themselves as well as to clients. However, it is argued that the idea of self-monitoring lends itself poorly to 'delegated' private social care services, i.e. to services that are outsourced to private service suppliers. Supervision of private social care service providers should not be too eagerly delegated to service providers themselves, or to clients, because we are here dealing with the constitutional right to adequate social care services. Client involvement also involves numerous practical problems, as shown at the end of the article. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-161125208 A |
| Classmark | I: PI: W4D: QAD: 76L |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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