Public Administration of Social Services: Access for Poor Households with Children in Ukraine

The article examines key issues in public admin¬istration regarding the provision of social services to poor households with children in Ukraine under conditions of war and increased institutional pres¬sure. It focuses on the challenges the public admin¬istration system faces in ensuring the accessibility, coverage, and quality of these services. Based on the Sample-Based Household Socio-Economic Sta¬tus Survey (HSESS) data, the authors assessed the coverage of poor households with children by social services, the quality of social services as assessed by recipient households, and the ratio between the actual provision of services and declared potential needs. It was found that among poor households with children, 4.4% received at least one type of so¬cial service, whereas among such households with¬out children, this figure is 5.7%. The service with the largest reported unmet needs among poor house¬holds with children is in-kind assistance. A signifi¬cant number of households also declared needing supported living services, as well as information and counseling. At the same time, a significant gap has been ob¬served between declared need and actual receipt of several services, suggesting possible weaknesses in targeting, access, and administrative coordination. Notably, among households that actually received social services, quality assessments were relatively positive, while overall coverage remained very low. These quality assessments reflect the experience of service recipients and should not be interpreted as an assessment of access or the effectiveness of the social-service provision system as a whole. The authors analyzed the main barriers to access¬ing social services, including: lack of entitlement to the service, insufficient information about eligibility, complex application procedures, bureaucratic ob¬stacles, financial inaccessibility of certain services, psychological discomfort when seeking assistance, and geographical and infrastructural limitations. It is argued that the existing problems are not only social but also public-administrative in nature, as they are linked to possible weaknesses of mechanisms for informing, coordinating, targeting, and routing ser¬vice recipients from vulnerable population groups. In wartime conditions, these weaknesses may be further intensified by displacement, changes in the place of service provision, infrastructure disruption, and uneven local administrative capacity. It has been concluded that improving the effectiveness of public administration in the field of social services for poor households with children requires more targeted service provision, simplified administrative procedures, the development of preventive and supportive services, improved interagency coordination, and systematic mon¬itoring of needs and the share of declared potential need met. The Ukrainian case also illustrates the importance of maintaining effective access mechanisms when social service systems operate under conditions of crisis and institutional strain. The results obtained can inform management decisions in social policy at the national and local levels.