Who runs the mill? The distribution of power in Swedish social service agencies

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe how significant actors in Swedish social service agencies perceive their own and other groups' influence over central areas of their agencies, and also to investigate the correspondence between these actors' perceptions of influence and what is said about the distribution of influence in the legislation and in the literature on social service organisations. The investigation is based on a questionnaire sent to politicians, managers and social workers in Swedish municipalities.

The analysis shows a concordance between the actors' own perceptions of their influence, and the ‘real’ distribution of influence, as perceived by the same actor groups. The general picture is that the politicians feel they have a strong influence on policy, delegation and, partly, also on organisational issues, but it is noteworthy that the top managers feel they have a stronger influence over all these areas. Social workers' influence is limited to the choice of working methods and operational procedures. The results indicate that some core elements of the New Public Management (NPM) model of governance exist in Swedish municipalities and seem to be generally accepted among significant actors. However, the results raise important questions about who should be held accountable for neglect and mismanagement and for failure in implementation of reforms in the social services.

Syftet med artikeln är att beskriva hur viktiga aktörsgrupper inom den svenska socialtjänsten upplever sin egen och andra gruppers makt över strategiska verksamhetsområden, och att jämföra detta med hur maktfördelningen föreskrivs i lagstiftningen och i litteraturen. Studien baseras på en enkät som har besvarats av politiker och tjänstemän inom individ—och familjeomsorgen i svenska kommuner.

Analysen visar på hög samstämmighet mellan hur aktörerna uppfattar sin egen makt och hur de uppfattar den ‘verkliga’ maktfördelningen. Toppcheferna är den grupp som anser sig ha mest inflytande över policyfrågor och organisationsfrågor, och det är också är den grupp som tillskrivs mest makt över dessa områden. Politikerna upplever att de har ett stort inflytande på policyfrågor och delvis även på organisationsfrågor, men det är värt att notera att toppcheferna upplever sig ha och tillskrivs större inflytande över dessa områden. Socialsekreterarnas inflytande är begränsat till val av arbetsmetoder och utformning av verksamhetsrutiner. Undersökningsresultatet bekräftar att viktiga delar av New Public Management som modell för styrning tillämpas inom svensk individ—och familjeomsorg, och tycks vara allmänt accepterad bland politiker och tjänstemän. Undersökningsresultatet väcker dock frågor kring ansvarsutkrävande vid missförhållanden och vid misslyckanden vid implementering av reformer inom socialtjänsten.

Keywords:

• Power Distribution
• Accountability
• Social Service Agency
• New Public Management
• Organisations/Management

Nyckelord:

• Maktfördelning
• Socialtjänst
• Ansvarsutkrävande
• New Public Management

Acknowledgements

The research project was funded by The Center for Public Sector Research (CEFOS) at the University of Gothenburg. The author is grateful for very valuable comments and suggestions by the reviewers of the manuscript.

Notes

1. One example of a question used in the questionnaire is: How do you perceive your own influence concerning the formation and change of policy, regulations and norms (e.g. objectives and guidelines)? The alternative answers were very strong (5), fairly strong (4), neither strong nor weak (3), fairly weak (2), very weak (1) and no opinion (0). The questions on organisation structure, delegation, choice of working methods and operational processes were formulated in a similar manner.

2. The categories of municipalities are (1) the three metropolitan cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants (which all are divided into district committees); (2) suburban municipalities; (3) large cities with 50,000–200,000 inhabitants; (4) commuter municipalities; (5) sparsely populated municipalities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants; (6) manufacturing municipalities; (7) other municipalities, more than 25,000 inhabitants; (8) other municipalities; 12,500–25,000 inhabitants and (9) other municipalities, fewer than 12,500 inhabitants.

3. This interpretation was supported by the participants’ explanations of their responses during the questionnaire test phase. Perhaps if the questions had been posed in a different manner, for example, asking how they perceive their discretion to design their very own social policy for the municipality, respondents would have given different answers.