Romania strives to improve quality of social services
Newsletter 2010-3
Publication date : 2010-09-09
Peer reviewers from Belgium, Croatia, Estonia
and Lithuania gathered in Bucharest on 29-30 June 2010 to assess progress made
by one of the EU’s most recent entrants in boosting the quality of its social
services, amid high poverty levels, lower than EU-average life expectancy and a
general shortage of social services. Romania launched its broad process aimed at
better regulating and continuously improving the delivery of social services
in 2003. Since then, a variety of reforms and measures have been implemented. Since 2004, a system of accreditation has
been put in place for service providers – whether public or private. To obtain
accreditation, providers must respect certain minimum quality standards,
relating to 9 “principles of excellence”, such as efficient leadership, respect
for ethics and beneficiaries’ rights, user participation, public-private
partnership and continuous evaluation. Accreditation is awarded at a decentralised
level. Providers that obtain at least 108 points out of 225 from at least two
assessors, receive an accreditation certificate that must be renewed every
three years. Certification is necessary to obtain funding. By 2009, around 2.500 public and private
service providers had been accredited, mainly in the areas of assistance to
children in difficulty, to the disabled and to the elderly The introduction of an accreditation system
in Romania has doubtless represented an important step towards the structural
quality improvement of social services. Nevertheless, legally-defined minimum
standards do not amount to quality standards, the Peer Review emphasised. Achieving excellence also requires that
organisations, once accredited, keep pursuing the goal of “continuous
improvement”, seeking to go beyond the mere satisfaction of minimal requirements. Yet, the improvement of quality standards is
often – among other factors - market-driven, resulting from increased
competition between providers offering similar services, and therefore
perceiving “quality” as an internal need. In Romania however, competition
between providers is still fairly weak. While the country’s accreditation system,
modelled on the concept of total quality management, may inspire a continuous
increase in the quality of services provided, such a development will not
happen automatically. Insufficient budgets, limited availability of trained
staff or weak management might stand in the way. The success of the scheme
therefore calls for the development of skills, such as project management,
group facilitation, participative leadership and organisational development, at
all professional and hierarchical levels within provider organisations. It is also important to highlight the fact
that investing in quality is profitable and serves to create employment. The
fact that social and health services account for 9.8% of employment in the
EU-27 and are the second largest economic sector after finance can indeed provide
a strong incentive for continuous improvement.From accreditation to excellence
