Open comparisons of social services in Sweden—Why, how, and for what?

Abstract

Open Comparisons is a soft power governance method using data collected from the municipalities for benchmarking their activities. Open Comparisons in Sweden may have different national goals, such as to measure quality, policy development and democratic openness. The overall aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the use of Open Comparisons to monitor the social welfare services—social assistance, child and youth care, and treatment of alcohol and drug abuse. Four focus group interviews were carried out with professionals from eight municipalities. Results show that Open Comparisons measures the technical quality of activities by reviewing what is available, such as routines and agreements, but says little about trickle down to client level. The findings are discussed in a wider context of overall goals of Open Comparisons related to soft power governance and governmentality which includes how the social services may internalize this way of thinking.

Keywords:

• organizational development
• soft power governance
• social services
• governmentality

Public Interest Statement

Open Comparisons is a soft power governance method using data collected from the municipalities for benchmarking their activities. The overall aim of this paper from Sweden is to describe and analyze the use of Open Comparisons to monitor the social welfare services—social assistance, child and youth care, and treatment of alcohol and drug abuse. Four focus group interviews were carried out with professionals from eight municipalities. Results show that Open Comparisons is not a simple tool for quality assessment in the social services. Open Comparisons measures the technical quality of activities by reviewing what is available, such as routines and agreements, but says little about trickle down to client level. By understanding what kind of results one could expect from Open Comparisons, it becomes easier for the municipalities to have a realistic goal for what can be achieved through this method.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sven Trygged

Sven Trygged’s research concern social work and social policy in a broad sense. He has written about labour market programmes, health issues and international social work. This study about Open Comparisons was executed together with FoU Nordväst, a regional unit for research and development work within the social services.