Government POS contracting and its impact on SWOs development in China

Abstract

In recent years, the Chinese government has been promoting robust social governance reform. As an emerging governance tool, government purchase of services (POS) from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been advocated by the Chinese government, and has thrived in some wealthy provinces. Such practice not only brings transition of social service provision paradigm, but also has great influence on the Chinese NGO sector. Responding to this emerging issue, this study aims to examine the mechanisms and characteristics of the Chinese government pioneering POS project and explore its impact on NGO development. The New Public Management approach, the new institutionalism and resource dependence theories are integrated to analyze NGO development under social governance reform. This study adopts a qualitative approach. Guangzhou’s Integrated Family Service Centers (IFSC) POS project and 11 social work organizations (SWOs) involved were chosen as the target subject of this study. Documentary analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews are used to collect the related data. A total of 24 key informants involved in the project were interviewed. The IFSC project had set up a comprehensive contracting procedures covering contract initiation, competitive tendering, contract management and evaluation. However, the government only stipulates several major recipient targets rather than specified service objectives in the service design. The tendering process is designed to be non-monopolistic and competitive, but it has not been fully ensured in practice. Although the government has established a rigid and frequent performance assessment mechanism, it functions as a tight monitoring of each contractor rather than informing project effectiveness and improvement. The SWO sector in Guangzhou has grown prosperously under the social management reform. The design of the POS brings institutional effect on the contracted SWOs. All-inclusive features of the project lead to the general isomorphism and undefined boundary in service implementation. Four major SWOs’ relational strategies are identified. They are: (a) the necessity to make active efforts to establish a good relationship; (b) the avoidance of directly turning down requests from the government, but adopting a ‘plus-minus strategy’; (c) the necessity of demonstrating the SWOs’ value in meeting urgent welfare needs; (d) adaption to the community environment. Contracted SWOs have differed in their developmental capacity, and big contractors have successfully emerged. Only those big-brand contractors could be recognized as a partner to the government and have better negotiation capability. The Guangzhou’s case exemplifies the use of the new governance tools inherently found in the authoritarian nature of China’s political system. The government can implement the reform powerfully and speedily, even creating prerequisite for the POS. However, it demonstrates limited steering capability and remains its traditional dominating role. The POS contracting would function as a new framework for indirect control of these NGOs in service delivery. It is believed that such robust growth of NGOs in service delivery would be anticipated in the near future. However, NGOs activated by these institutional resources are quite submissive and largely de-politicalized, and cannot be regarded as a feature of the development of the civil society in China. (495 words).