Abstract
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In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, solving many social issues has become the domain of self-government administration, including social assistance. At the same time, due to the expansion and strengthening of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sector in Poland and the Czech Republic, there is a growing tendency to change roles in the social assistance implemented to date. It is directed in cooperation of local government administration with non-governmental organizations. The aim of the article will be to show how the cooperation of territorial self-government with non-governmental organizations looks like in the scope of solving critical social problems especially the problem of homelessness. The authors will focus in particular on social assistance for homeless people. It is worth emphasizing that after sports and culture - social assistance is the most frequent field of activity of non-governmental organizations in Poland. An interesting issue is also the quality of this cooperation as well as the effectiveness, for example in combating homelessness and various barriers for people with disabilities and without shelters.
Both in the Czech Republic and in Poland, these tasks coincide with the objectives of both municipality and non-governmental organizations operating in the field of social assistance. They are the closest to citizens and have the awareness about people in need. It seems, however, that there are different ways to solve these problems by both entities. The answer to the question what difficulties they face in implementing social assistance tasks is also the purpose of this article.
L. Salamon believes that local administration and NGOs have advantages which, when combined, may solve social problems. For example, a state possessing financial resources may outsource tasks to non-governmental organizations, which are faster and better prepared for solving diverse problems (Schmidt, p. 54).What is interesting, the above theory describes relations between public administration and non-governmental organizations in a bipolar manner – i.e., in terms of conflict or cooperation.These relations are never neutral, though. As Clark points out, “They [NGOs] can oppose the state, complement it, or reform it – but they cannot ignore it” (Najam, p. 382). Najam believes that relations between non-governmental organizations and public administration are more complex. In the proposed Four-C’s Model, he distinguished four possible relations depending on the objectives as well as on the strategies (or means) chosen. These are: 1) cooperation, when both the state and NGOs pursue similar objectives and select similar means; 2) complementarity, occurring when the state and NGOs have similar objectives but prefer to choose different means for their achievement; 3) cooptation, when both sides have similar strategies but different objectives; 4) confrontation, when both the objectives and the strategies (means) differ between the state and NGOs (Najam, p. 388).
In this article, the research methods that will be used is an institutional and legal method (indication of the legal basis for the relation between NGO and public administration), content analysis (including official documents), a comparative method (by comparing instruments of cooperation used in the Czech Republic and in Poland).
Najam A., The Four Cs of Government - Third Sector Relations: Cooperation, Confrontation, Complementary, Co-optation, Sustainable Development Policy, 2000.
Schmidt J., Rozwój organizacji pozarządowych.
Teoria i praktyka, Warszawa 2012.
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