Society groups attitude toward organization of social benefit as factor of social assistance policy reform

Įvairių visuomenės grupių požiūris į socialinės paramos gavėjus ir jiems teikiamos paramos organizavimą leidžia spręsti, kokie socialinės paramos politikos principai visuomenės ar politikų bus palaikomi, o kokie sulauks nepritarimo ir bus sunkiai įgyvendinami. Atlikto tyrimo rezultatai leidžia teigti, kad Lietuvoje didžioji dalis savivaldybių socialinės paramos politikoje dalyvaujančiųjų palaiko socialinės pašalpos mokėjimą reglamentuojančias nuostatas, įtvirtinančias kontroliuojančias ir drausminančias socialinės pašalpos gavėjus nuostatas. Šias nuostatas galima apibūdinti kaip moralinės varguomenės diskursą, kuriam būdingas dominuojantis neigiamas požiūris į pašalpos gavėjus ir liberalios socialinės paramos politikos palaikymas. Tai, kad piniginės socialinės paramos reforma Lietuvoje turi gana platų įvairių socialinių grupių palaikymą, leidžia kalbėti apie galimą šios reformos sėkmingą įgyvendinimą. Kita vertus, moralinės varguomenės diskursas kuria diskriminuojančią aplinką, kuri ateityje gali padidinti visuomenės socialinę stratifi kaciją, išstumiant socialinės pašalpos gavėjus į visuomenės užribį.Various society groups attitude to social assistance recipients and to organization of social assistance enable us to deal with questions what social assistance policy principles among the public and politicians will be supported and what will get rejections and will be diffi cult to implement. The article is based on the data of empirical research which was carried out in 2013. These data allow us to consider what attitude to the social assistance recipients is dominate din one or another social group. The survey results suggest that the most of the municipal social assistance policy actors support provisions which regulate the payment of social benefi t. These provisions refl ect the maintenance of discipline and control principles in support organization, what might be connected with the general prevailing negative attitude towards benefi t recipients. Even social workers, who under their professional mission should be more empathic their clients’ situation, support provisions which more control and discipline the recipients. It can be argued that reform of cash social assistance in Lithuania has a fairly large support of various social groups. This allows us to talk about the potential successful implementation of this reform and further regard for strengthening of liberal social policy. By comparing various society groups’ opinion about the main provisions of cash social assistance reform in Lithuania, it can be said that the differences of evaluations do not allow us to talk about one or another social group clear regard for cash assistance recipients. On the other hand, the maximization of provisions which control and discipline social benefi t recipients creates discriminatory environment which in the future could increase the society social stratifi cation by pushing the social benefi t recipients to society’s corner. The increase of assistance accurateness reduces the demand of social assistance expenditure. However, only discipline of assistance recipients by tightening the conditions of assistance receiving, for example, the loss of right to assistance due to the inability to take working obligations without creating a support network for such persons, marginalizes socially vulnerable groups. Evaluating the research data from different approaches of social exclusion discourses, it could be argued that the social integration discourse concedes to the moral poor discourse and the redistribution discourse is obviously the most unpopular. Meanwhile, the moral poor discourse creates discriminatory environment which could increase the society social stratifi cation in the future by pushing the social benefi t recipients to society’s corner