Editor's note: Chen Tao is a professor with the social work research center of the China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing.

During the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee, the leadership decided to improve the effectiveness of non-governmental social organizations. The decision effectively backed moves in a number of cities, including Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, to invite social organizations to provide more public services.

Previous efforts to empower social organizations prompted criticism because some of the organizations are not transparent or professional, and some lack proper management procedures.

To remedy that, the government will evaluate the managerial skills of social organizations to help improve the quality of service, but that doesn't mean the services provided by social organizations will replace government functions. Instead, the organizations will offer the types of social services they are best suited to provide, such as community correction.

The government will also remove the barriers that hinder the registration of non-administrative, government-owned social organizations. Under the current system they are affiliated with, or attached to, ministries, but in the future, these types of social organizations will be able to register when they are founded.

Chen Tao spoke to Zhang Yuchen.

(China Daily USA 11/27/2013 page6)