USERS’ SATISFACTION REGARDING THE DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL SECURITY SERVICES: A CASE STUDY OF THE LOCAL NETWORK OF SOCIAL INTERVENTION

Abstract

The decentralization policies have been gaining an increasing preponderant role in the efficiency, efficacy and sustainability of national economies. Its application is multiple in several areas of the public services, such as health, education and social sector. The decentralization emanates, essentially, from the economic development and the globalization process which have motivated the market integration, social, demographical, and cultural changes and a redefinition of the State’s role in the production and distribution of public services. The methodology used in this research derives from qualitative methods, namely documental analysis and interviews to citizens and users of the service. Regarding the first objective, decentralized social security services meet the needs of the population. If, in one hand, the State acts globally, using centralized services, on the other responds locally, using RLIS. This network has proved to be a favorable environment for social inclusion, by bringing services closer to the population, providing equitable and adequate responses. Regarding the second objective, we segregated the satisfaction analysis
by dimensions, location, utility and delivery of the decentralized services. Location allows the reduction of the costs inherent to the displacement of the users, as well as less time spent to access the service. Considering the second dimension, the utility of the decentralized service, this dimension emerges as a facilitating agent that empowers the institution to respond to the economic and financial needs of the socially excluded population. Finally, delivery played a key role in responding appropriately to individuals. The tacit knowledge and competence of the staff has proven to be predominant in the appropriate response and trust building between the relationships. The main conclusions show that the decentralization has a dominant role in the users’ satisfaction, namely because it induces advantages in the costs and travel times as well as facilitates and simplifies the access. Nevertheless, the users’ satisfaction is directly related to the attribution of a social support connected to their needs. Thus, the conclusion is that decentralization is a policy that should be continued, as well as the Local Network of Social Intervention, because, when compared with the centralized service, it has shown a better performance in delivering the service and also in what concerns response adequacy. The State should consider these facts as arguments for creating more and new measures in order to continue the services decentralization.