2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Reform of Social Welfare and "Contract for Welfare Service
| Project/Area Number |
17530072
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Civil law
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| Research Institution | Chuo University |
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Principal Investigator |
KASAI Osamu Chuo University, Law School, Professor (00185737)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2006
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| Keywords | contract for welfare service / better quality of welfare service / contract law / social welfare / 自己決定 / なす債務 |
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| Research Abstract |
The recent fundamental reform of social welfare has brought a dramatic change of the supplying system of social welfare service in Japan.
Before the reform, it depended on a direction of an administrative agency whether an elderly or handicapped person can get welfare service and what kind of service they can be supplied. In such a system, there were sometimes mismatches between the needs of the people and the directions of the administrative agency. Moreover, the service supplying companies had neither competition nor motive to improve the "quality" of the service they should supply. After the reform, an elderly or handicapped person would make a contract with any company for supplying better welfare service that they need. They could select a suitable company and proper service by themselves. A local autonomous body or the government would support the people by the system of social insurance or financial assistance. This system of "Quasi-market mechanism" or free enterprise system wou
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ld encourage many welfare service companies in entrepreneurial activity for "better quality of welfare service". The reform devoted much of its energy to creating the condition for a market on which such bargain could be made. So this reform is discussed by a catchphrase, "from administrative direction to contract" or "social welfare by contract".
The concept of contract has however, different background from social welfare, namely contract is a instrument of free market system, while social welfare is a safety-net of free market society. Successful developments of this reform depend on a suitable theory of contract law, which can work well in the field of social welfare. Japanese scholars are now formulating such new contract law theory.
The particular features of the relationships among the elderly/handicapped people, welfare service companies, and administrative body should be analyzed in the light of contract law to examine some new legal issues, for example valuating system of the quality of social welfare and its application to the doctrine of breach of contract, regulation of service-supplying contracts. Less
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