Information systems for the social administration using the soft systems methodology

Although information systems are very important for the functioning of social administration and the services provision to citizens, they have not received adequate attention both in the research literature and in real-world implementations. Their complex nature due to the various stakeholders and the variety of different social services they have to deliver, call for a holistic approach in their design, which qualifies the soft systems methodology as the appropriate tool for designing such systems. To support this argument and pave the way for online integrated information systems in social administration, this paper shows how to apply the first four steps of SSM onto a general social administration context, and proposes a conceptual model of an information system in the area of childcare services as an example.