Promotion of Access to Benefits under the Social Welfare Promotion Act, B.E. 2546 (2003) (as amended by the Social Welfare Promotion Act, (No. 2), B.E. 2550 (2007)) of Public Benefit Organization in Bangkok

Abstract

                    The purpose of this research is to study access to benefits, barriers to access, and approaches to promote access for public benefit organizations under Social Welfare Promotion Act, B.E. 2546 (2003). A Mixed Method was applied to conduct the research of which its 211 samples consisted of executives or directors of public benefit organizations that were certified under the aforementioned Act. The researcher utilized descriptive statistics to determine the frequency, percentage, mean and, standard deviation of the data while inferential statistics was also applied to analyze differences between variables through T-test and F-test/One–Way ANOVA. If the differences were detected, the researcher would apply Scheffe Test to evaluate the difference by the significance level of 0.05. The findings are as follows.

                        General information of the samples revealed that the majority of them are employees of foundations that have been operating for 11-20 years. The foundations have been registered as public benefit organizations for 11-15 years. It was also revealed that the public benefit organizations have provided social welfare mostly to children whose ages ranged from 0 to 18 years old. Such provision mostly involved educational social welfare which concerned educational promotion. The findings indicated that the samples were generally aware of the rights to the benefits at a high level. However, claiming the benefits was ranked on a middle level. The samples were found to be obstructed from claiming the benefits and opinionated towards approaches to promote the access to benefits, both at a high level. The comparison between general information of public benefit organizations, the access to benefits (awareness and claiming the benefits), the obstruction to the access, and the approaches to promote access to benefits suggested that there was no statistically significant difference between the samples from different types of public benefit organization on the three variables (P ≥ 0.05). Nonetheless, there was a statistically significant difference between the operating year of the organizations on two variables which are claiming the benefits and the obstruction to the access to benefits (P < 0.05). Furthermore, there was no statistically significant difference between the number of years that the organization have been registered as a public benefit organization on the awareness of benefits (P ≥ 0.05). However, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference between the operating year of the organizations on claiming the benefits and the obstruction to access the benefits (P < 0.05). Lastly, it was indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the number of years that the organization have been registered as a public benefit organization on the awareness of benefits, benefits claim, the obstruction to access the benefits, and approaches to promote the access to benefits (P < 0.05).

                    According to the research findings, the researcher recommended responsible agencies assign personnel to handle tasks directly related to public benefit organization, establish strategy, and plan, and improve regulations that involve practical operation. The researcher also suggested that commissions should be established to drive the policy which encourages public benefit organizations to gain access to the benefits. At the operational level, the researcher recommended that meetings should be convened to exchange information and knowledge regarding the obstruction to access to benefits. Moreover, at this level, public relations and training activities should be arranged and a guideline to gain access to the benefits should be developed.

Keywords: Promotion, access to benefits, public benefit organizations, Social Welfare Promotion Act, B.E. 2546 (2003)