On May 30, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting, which was dedicated to studying methods to encourage innovation in social management.

At the end of September, the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security was renamed as the Central Committee for Comprehensive Social Administration and entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating and strengthening social management.

Gong Weibin, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that in the past social management functions in cities were mainly conducted by employers, as part of the planned economy. But this traditional pattern is no longer feasible due to rapid social and economic changes.

"One remarkable change is the emergence of new social groups in Chinese society, such as entrepreneurs, professional managers at multinational companies, small business owners, self-employed people, migrant workers from rural areas," Gong said.

He added that people's demands and lives are becoming more and more diversified. "People are no longer satisfied with having the basic means of subsistence. They want to develop themselves and protect their various rights," he said.

Experiments

In 2011, the Beijing Municipal Government spent a total of 200 million yuan ($31.25 million) to contract local NGOs to deliver a wide range of social services under 600 projects. Both the amount of funding and the number of projects doubled compared with 2010. This change is seen to be the result of the positive feedback given by residents to services provided by NGOs.

For example, a primary school for children of migrant workers with more than 700 students reported a shortage of music, physical education and English teachers in 2010. Contracted by the government, an NGO recruited volunteer teachers from among the students of nearby universities. The solution proved highly effective. The university students were pleased to have the opportunity to put what they learned to good use and the poorly-funded school received a contingent of well-qualified teachers.

The government of Beijing's Dongcheng District initiated a pilot project that divided the district into 589 "grids" and equipped each "grid" with its own administrator. The grid-management trial is expected to allow the government to respond more quickly to residents' needs.

"In the past, residents often did not know how to deal with and approach government departments. Now whenever they have such needs, they can talk to us and we will contact the relevant departments on their behalf," said Suo Chunzhi, a "grid" administrator.

Based on better understanding of people's daily needs, the government of Dongcheng District has also launched a program titled "1510," meaning each of the district's residents will be able to access to 10 most common daily services by walking no more than 15 minutes. Moreover, the government has certified some restaurants, clinics, grocery stores, barber shops, household appliance repair shops, part-time maid agencies and fruit shops, and regularly monitors the quality of their products and services. A yellow page listing all the service providers within a community is distributed to every local household, with government-certified providers marked in a different color. The government has also purchased kiosks on wheels for shoe repairers, bicycle repairers and newspaper vendors so that they can provide better services.

"Simply by making a call to the community service center, the elderly and the handicapped can receive various services from government-certified restaurants and shops at their own homes, with their bills paid by the government," said Han Xiuhua, head of Dongwai Street Community Committee in Dongcheng.

The Shanghai Social Innovation Park, which was launched in July 2010, is the result of a partnership between the local government and a local NGO, Non-Profit Incubator. Funded by the local government, the park, the first of its kind in the country, is aimed at providing social welfare by cultivating social enterprises. Focusing on providing on-site job training and employment opportunities for disabled people, the park hosts a restaurant that recruits mentally handicapped employees, an art gallery with disabled painters and teachers, a graphic design studio with hearing-impaired trainees and a massage clinic with blind masseuses.

In July, the government of Guangdong Province issued eight documents on encouraging social management innovation. Concrete measures outlined in the documents include improving e-government platforms, procuring more public services from the NGOs and providing more services at the grassroots level.

"The government's responsibilities lie in providing efficient public management and services instead of extending its power into every corner of society," said Vice Governor of Guangdong Chen Yunxian.

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