Government gives okay to outsource social services
The cabinet approved recommendations on Sunday for streamlining and improving the quality of social services provided to the public through outsourcing.
The volume of outsourcing to date stands at more than NIS 9 billion per year and is provided to the most underprivileged populations, including children at risk, the elderly and people with special needs.
“We will see to it that the tenders for the social services of the State of Israel, for the citizens of Israel, concentrate on the best result for the citizen – the citizen is at the center,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu congratulated all the partners involved in the process: the ministers of finance, health, labor and social services, immigration and absorption, education and justice, as well as nonprofit associations. He said the decision marked an “important turning point.”
The issue was first raised as a main subject by the Trajtenberg Committee that was created after the social justice protests of 2011 to examine Israel’s socioeconomic problems. The recommendations were implemented on Sunday following further examination by an executive roundtable at the Prime Minister’s Office and by representatives of ministries under the guidance of Eli Groner, director-general of the PMO, and headed by Ehud Prawer, vice president for government and society in the PMO, in collaboration with representatives of charitable organizations, businesses and local authorities.
Groner said the decision would improve the most sensitive social services over the course of the coming years, amounting to some 40 percent of government spending.
“The move will improve the quality of the services received by citizens, and remove barriers that prevent other businesses from integrating into areas that today are monopolistic,” he said.
As part of the process, several measures will be introduced including: drawing up defined service standards and results and implementing compensation mechanisms and sanctions on the basis of performance; issuing control reports on institutional services; consulting with service providers before issuing tenders; and increasing competition by encouraging the entry of additional service operators.