METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO ASSESSING THE POTENTIAL OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES TO FULFILL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

It is established that the problem of difficult living conditions at community level should cover a wider range of measures aimed at preventing the risks of falling into difficult living conditions, including employment policy, income generation and redistribution in the community, and the provision of material assistance. The author proposes to consider the potential of territorial communities to fulfill social obligations as a cumulative result of their long-term socio-economic development based on a coordinated system of interrelated elements of state and local policy. It is noted that a territorial community has an existing and promising potential for socio-economic development. The first of them in a generalized form characterizes the degree of use of organizational and economic capabilities of the community in the provision of basic social services by local authorities, business, and public organizations with a focus on the actual and potential number of service recipients and possible amounts of funding. The prospective potential of a community reflects its maximum capacity in this area – these are the capabilities and resources that, under certain conditions, can be involved in this area, but are not yet used for various reasons. An algorithm for assessing the potential of territorial communities to fulfill social obligations has been developed, which includes the goal, stages, as well as directions, indicators and evaluation criteria. The practice of assessing the potential of communities and territories is analyzed and its most common methods are systematized: interval scoring, index, ranking method by certain indicators, and scoring. The main methodological approaches that can be used in assessing the potential of communities are substantiated, which include factor, resource, performance, comprehensive, situational, integral, reproductive, comparative and systemic. The expediency of using a systematic approach in assessing the community's potential to fulfill social obligations is proved, since it allows assessing each of the elements of the totality of components that determine the realized and unrealized potential of the territorial community in the social sphere. It is proposed that the assessment of the potential of territorial communities in the field of social responsibilities should be based on determining the level of their self-sufficiency as one of the main goals of development in the context of decentralization of governance. The information sources for assessing the potential of territorial communities are systematized.