How will the impacts of these social processes be assessed?
From the point of view of the spatial scale of the impact, the consequences for the country, the region, the district, the municipality, the territorial unit – the population of the impact site or the specific target group of beneficiaries are assessed.
Social impact in the narrow sense of the word means the impact on employment, job creation, education and training, self-education, health and quality of life, communication in and between social groups, social cohesion and social segregation within the local territorial community.
In this case, the task is to answer the questions of who wins and loses, if the intended action takes place, what they are and how social costs and benefits are distributed.
In order to assess the social effect of management decisions, it is necessary to have criteria that allow us to classify social consequences as benefits or costs. In other words, the existence of certain standards and values is assumed.
In fact, the procedure ends with the definition of what some authors call “target” and “necessary” efficiency, ie efficiency, understood in the normative-ideal dimension.
This experience allows us to realize a number of simple truths, without taking into account which can not proceed to the creation of socially significant programs and projects, namely:
• before proceeding with the implementation of any management decision, it is necessary to assess its social meaning, and hence its appropriateness;
• insofar as there are no universal criteria for social efficiency, each specific management decision must be accompanied by a justification of the expected social effect and certain criteria for its evaluation;
• the interpretation of the social effect depends on the scale of the management decision, on the level of consideration of the subjects experiencing the impact of the innovation, on the motives and objectives pursued, as well as on the time interval during which the expected result is expected;
• it is important to distinguish the social effect in the broad and narrow sense of the word, taking into account that there is a relationship between them. The justification of management decisions is increased if the idea of social effect is complex and includes economic, social, psychological, socio-cultural and other significant consequences;
• Assessing the supposed social effect, it is necessary to focus on certain value standards, allowing us to deliberately judge the social “value”, the social “continuity of decisions”. Such an assessment is possible only in the case of comparing the social effect of what is expected from several alternative solutions.
The problem of social effectiveness of governance began to be actively explored in the late sixties and early seventies of last century. Previously, it was related to the development of the theory of social management, which raises the question not only of the economic but also of the social effect of managerial activity. The question of the effectiveness of the management system, such as the effectiveness of the activity of the management entity or the management subsystem, needs to focus on the following questions: what is the contribution of the management system in solving these or those socially significant tasks? What is its participation in achieving the goals of the specific organization?
The primary criterion is the degree of impact of the managed subsystem. However, as far as the management system is relatively independent and functions as a whole complex, another set of criteria can and should be defined. It is formulated on the basis of the primary criterion and provides answers to questions related to the internal state of the management system, with its ability to operate with increasing efficiency.
Along with the assessment of the effectiveness of the management system in general, the effectiveness of the main components of management – functions, functional structures, technologies – can and should be determined.
Efficiency can be seen not only as a phenomenon in the economic sphere. Moreover, it is a relatively independent social phenomenon. It is based on the consideration of the multilevel structure of the elements, value criteria and indicators. They fix the effectiveness of social programs and events, the activities of different population groups, the social consequences of the implementation of economic, scientific and technical projects. Indicators of social efficiency are considered as tools for assessing the realization of the interests and needs of society, the state, the team and the individual.
Efficiency, as a social phenomenon, appears in the form of a qualitative and quantitative characteristic for maximum development of human resources, forms of social life and management of society, taking into account the minimum social, political, economic and moral costs. This approach allows us to consider social efficiency as a universal approach to expressing the degree of effectiveness of positive and negative functioning in the development of social institutions and processes. At the same time, the widely understood principle of social efficiency goes beyond the given ratio, insofar as it takes into account and integrates several other most important dimensions of the effectiveness of social activity. It is about its orientation to achieve socially significant, normatively set goals for the development of the social management site, the assessment of the consistency and the real degree of approach to the desired public interest in the order of “self-development” of the system, the orientation towards the quality of management. These aspects of measuring social efficiency should naturally be reflected in the construction of the general model or principle of social efficiency.
The analysis of the problem of social efficiency shows that in the process of origin and development of science, it naturally receives the necessary attention in the context of different management systems. In particular, the importance of this context with regard to the system of state and local governance of the social spheres of society should be emphasized. The public nature of these systems implies their limitation in their activity for social effect and its determining quality of social efficiency in the wide range of social needs and goals. Therefore, the social efficiency of the state management system objectively requires the application of a polymodal multi-parameter approach to its measurement. The connection of the whole complex of social and effective state governance with the social security of the country as a whole, as well as each region and territory in its independence, is also significant.
How would we define a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of social policies and programs?
When defining the complex evaluation of the effectiveness of social programs, it is appropriate to note the following:
• the evaluation of the effectiveness of social programs should be considered in terms of quantitative and qualitative indicators: the quantitative indicator is expressed in the natural volume of social goods, as well as in the material costs of obtaining them, and the qualitative indicator or criterion is reflected in internal mechanisms the achievement of the given result, the quality of the organizational and managerial system, the system norms and values, the norms of the law, on the basis of which the activity in the given social system is considered effective or not;
• The evaluation of the programs must also take into account their economic and social efficiency. Economic efficiency is expressed in the fact that the implementation of the social program itself must become a catalyst for effective economic development. The funds spent by society to meet social needs must eventually be returned in the form of increased social and labor activity;
• the degree of achievement of social efficiency is determined by the position of movement towards the socially significant goal, which is meaningfully revealed as a state of maximum realization of human needs and self-realization of its essential forces, in other words, his personality, which is realized above all in creating worthy for the human conditions for life and development.
In case of complexity or possibility of calculating the economic efficiency, the weight in the assessment is the optimality in achieving the social effect.
It should be borne in mind that the results of the programs relate either to the objectives of the creators of the program or to the needs of those to whom those programs are directed. The most effective in this case are those programs in which the goals of the managers and organizers of the program most fully reflect the needs of the subjects of the program.
