PUBLIC PROCUREMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES IN BELARUS: REVIEW OF THE FIRST STAGE OF IMPLEMENTATION IN BELARUS

The article focuses on research of the peculiarities of implementing the mechanism of public procurement in the area of social services in Belarus. The goal is to analyse the process and the outcomes of implementing the mechanism of public procurement in the area of social services in Belarus in 2013-2015, reveal the problems encountered and suggest the solutions. The research was conducted based the study of documentation available and the use of common logical methods such as analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalisation, abstraction, extrapolation, etc. The finding of the research was that introduction of the mechanism of public procurement in social sphere is one of the most promising instruments for reforms in the system of social services. This mechanism will allow increasing the efficiency of budget spent and attracting private funds to resolve social problems. However, the innovative nature of this instrument for social sphere Belarus requires analyzing principles of legislation in the area of public procurement, considering the opinions of all stakeholders involved and ensuring that all methodological materials are available. As a result, problems encountered by state commissioners and social services providers during various stages of the implementation of public social procurement have been revealed: at the initial stage when the main challenge is to find the most important social problems to be addressed, to specify the solution required and document it in the appropriate assignment; at the stage when the competition is held and winners are selected; at the stage of control and results assessment. Recommendations on improving the mechanism of public procurement in the area of social services based on the results of the first stage of its implementation in Belarus are one more important outcome of the research. The findings can be used by local administrations (commissioners) and social services providers for increasing the efficiency of public procurement as well as state authorities for enhancing the legislation in the area of social services and public procurement.