(cont.) Response to interpellations 2024/25:54 and 90 on the closure of service offices
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
S argues that the government lacks political ambition and responsibility when they impose savings conditions on Statens servicecenter instead of deciding themselves which offices should be scaled back 1 2. S considers that the reductions are a prioritization to finance tax cuts 3 4 and that the state's presence throughout the country should be about creating trust rather than efficiency 1 2. S argues that the government has abandoned the idea of state presence, which can reduce trust in the state and increase tensions between city and country 5 6. KD wants to give Statens servicecenter greater decision-making power over location to promote cost-effectiveness 7 8 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Kalle Olsson (S)
Madam Speaker! State presence throughout the country is really nothing that just happens by itself. On the contrary, there seems to be an almost inherent force that somehow pulls state jobs, especially more qualified ones, towards Stockholm, preferably to the neighborhoods outside the Riksdag. That is where people want to be, within a comfortable walking distance to departments and agency colleagues.
On a human level, it is not so difficult to understand the attraction. The problem is only that Stockholm is not the whole country. To counter the centralization, clear political counterforces are needed. What is needed is a government that has the will and the courage to point with the whole hand at Agency Sweden and say that one takes a responsibility to see to the whole country.
Under the S-led government, we saw, perhaps for the first time in a long time, an attempt to try to correct decades of centralization of state jobs. We saw how new agencies were placed in towns around the country, how existing agencies were relocated, and so we saw the establishment of many new state service offices around the entire country. These are offices that primarily offer valuable everyday service to people and companies, but they have also come to signal the political shift, that the state, not least in our rural municipalities, shall be something more than just a system company and some mailboxes.
These interpellations concern the state service centers, which, with this government, will become fewer and have poorer accessibility. It is a decision that, of course, raises questions, and they are questions that I think the Minister has so far seemed to have had difficulty answering.
In addition to the questions that have been asked, one may wonder how the government has arrived at the level of the current savings. Why is it exactly 50 million that is to be saved next year? Why not 25 million, 75 million, or 100 million? Where is the basis in that context?
If the government thinks that too few citizens are using the service centers, one might wonder how many citizens the government wants to see using the service centers to reach some kind of acceptable level.
If one cannot answer the questions, Madam Speaker, the conclusion is that the cuts are not so much about the service offices themselves, but about the government looking for money to finance tax cuts for the highest earners.
Isak From (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Peder Björk and Linus Sköld for important interpellations.
Madam Speaker! In the budget, we now see area by area that the intentions in the Rural Area Committee's proposal, which resulted in a government bill in the Swedish Riksdag, are being removed. Regarding the committee, seven out of eight of the Riksdag's parties have agreed that the proposals are important. When it comes to state presence throughout the country, all parties were in complete agreement that the state must exist in the entire country to create trust. The state decisions, the organizations, and the authorities must exist in the entire country.
The proposal was that Statens servicecenter should receive the assignment. This was, in itself, criticized from some sides. Others wanted a completely new agency, but now it was Statens servicecenter that was to receive the assignment to expand the service offices.
We Social Democrats had a rather offensive agenda, even though I personally thought it was a bit too poor. We simply didn't expand fast enough. We also had a major task of getting the authorities to want to be represented at the state service centers.
Now we see a different agenda. A quote was read from a previous debate with Minister Erik Slottner and myself. The Minister was clear that there are no changed intentions in the issues. The Minister further stated clearly that it is desired that the state should exist and be active in the entire country, that is to say, that the state should have a face in the entire country.
From Erik Slottner's response, it appears that cuts of 50 million kronor have consequences. But the Minister does not want to take the responsibility of stating what those consequences are; instead, the responsibility is placed on the agency. There, Madam Speaker, is the heart of the matter. The Government does not take responsibility for its own proposals in this area. It would have been more straightforward and honest to say that one does not think it functions particularly well. There are parties in the Tidö agreement that say they want to centralize and streamline the agencies because it currently looks too vague.
Instead, a cut is made and it is said that the authority shall handle this itself. At the same time, there is a rural proposition which states that the state shall evaluate and describe the consequences of the cuts.
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Since "the SD government" was said several times in the debate before 4 p.m., I would like to provide a factual clarification. In Sweden, we have a government consisting of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals. It does not include the Sweden Democrats. It is therefore not a question of an SD government because they do not sit in the government.
The government has a parliamentary cooperation with the Sweden Democrats to obtain support for its policies and budget in the democracy we live in. A majority of the voters have voted for the four parties, and we therefore have this cooperation project, which so far has functioned very well and served Sweden well.
We are heading in the right direction and have broken a negative trend in many areas of society, which makes me proud to belong to such a government. But the government consists of three parties, namely Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna.
Quite rightly as has been said earlier, I today inaugurated the 148th service center in Rinkeby. During my two years as Civil Minister, I have not been present at all new openings, but when I have been able to be there, I have been at the inaugurations - and that has been important.
I stand by my word that the service centers will also in the future be important. The service centers will exist all around Sweden moving forward, even with this reduction at Statens servicecenter. We are therefore not removing the entire appropriation. We are not shutting down the agency, but we are introducing a savings condition on Statens servicecenter. Offices will also in the future be spread throughout the country, and the state will have a face and be present in all of Sweden - not in all municipalities but in large parts of Sweden.
With that said, these cuts will of course have consequences. That is obvious. We are now conducting a dialogue with the authority and keeping ourselves informed on how it sees it wanting to manage this saving moving forward.
One can mock it or say that it is to shirk the responsibility as a government and minister not to state exactly which offices are to be abolished. I actually do not think that. It is in accordance with the Swedish administrative model that we set a savings target. It happens from time to time that one does this for agencies. We did it in the previous budget, which applies for this year. There, we set a one percent savings target on the agencies. Then it was up to the heads of the agencies to decide where it was easiest and in the best way to achieve this saving.
I also think it is the agency that possesses the best competence to decide how to achieve this saving of 50 million next year. It could involve closing offices that have very few visitors. It could involve co-locating – in that case, I think it is good – with a municipal activity, which allows one to lower the rental costs. One might work more with mobile concepts, where the operating costs become lower – all depending on and in accordance with the conditions that exist at that location. The agency is much better suited to determine this than I am as a minister, so I do not think it is any strange at all that we have chosen that model.
We also cannot duck from the fact that the National Audit Office has had comments on the agency and the agency's efficiency, that there is a potential for efficiency, and that the agency could have much greater own decision-making authority over the placement of various service offices. That is what we are now listening to and moving forward with, and we therefore see a savings potential.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! Just to make this very clear: What we are talking about here is, therefore, a reduction of 150 million kronor over the next three years, specifically targeted by the SD government at the service offices.
The 1 percent saving that the government highlighted as already implemented this year is a general saving across government agencies. This proposal that the SD government has now put forward is targeted with surgical precision at precisely the service offices. It has nothing to do with Swedish administrative tradition, Madam Speaker, but it is about a clear prioritization from this SD government.
I am a member of the Riksdag here and represent Västernorrland. It is a county consisting of seven municipalities with large distances between them.
On the border of Jämtland lies one of these municipalities, namely Ånge municipality. There, as recently as April 23 this year, a service office was opened. It is an office that is open for three hours two days a week. That may sound like very little, Madam Speaker, but if the alternative is that one does not have access to state services, physically on-site, in just Ånge, this still makes a very big difference for those who live in that municipality.
Madam Speaker! The fact is that the service from the service centers is very much appreciated. In a survey from 2023, it is 96 percent of the visitors - I repeat: 96 percent of the visitors - at the service centers who are satisfied with the service they receive when they visit the service centers.
Furthermore, it is actually 2.6 million visitors every year who receive some form of service from the authorities that are part of a service center. In total, it is approximately 3.1 million cases that are handled in a year in all service centers across Sweden.
My question, Madam Speaker, is quite simply this. Why does the Minister want those people who have access to these service centers today to be given reduced opportunities for state services across the country with the SD government's policy?
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! I cannot help but comment on Erik Slottner's indignation regarding the term SD-government.
It is quite rightly pointed out by the Minister that the three parties in the government are the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals. But those who decide over the government are by no means any of these parties but the Sweden Democrats, and thus it is an accurate description to call this an SD government.
Erik Slottner commented on this change in the Althingi a few weeks ago, specifically on September 25, with the following words: "They will need to streamline their operations." The change is therefore going in the exact opposite direction of what is the entire purpose of the existence of service offices. Whoever thinks that he is to achieve trust for the state in the whole country and access to the citizen-facing authorities' service, physically on site, in the whole country, and has efficiency as a paramount value, has simply thought incorrectly.
Of course, you will not get the most visits per invested krona in Överkalix. Of course, you will not get it in Jokkmokk. Of course, you will not get the highest efficiency in Arvidsjaur. In all these municipalities, however, the fact is that it is over seven miles to the nearest service office if the local one were to close. That is, like, the whole point. The whole point of the state's presence throughout the country is not efficiency, but on the contrary.
If one is to achieve the state's presence throughout the entire country, political ambition is required, and Erik Slottner completely lacks it. He stands here and says that the authority is best suited to decide this. Then there is no political ambition. Then those promises about the heartland that would not be forgotten, that would not be put on the back burner, were just talk. It was just empty talk, because when it comes down to it, Erik Slottner raises his hands in the air and says that someone else has to decide; I have no ambition.
I mean that if one wants to take political responsibility for this change, one needs to say which offices are to be closed. The savings of 50 million next year, 100 million the year after that, and 150 million the year after that – which offices will it cost? Is it Jokkmokk? Is it Arvidsjaur? Is it Kiruna? Is it Haparanda? Is it Överkalix? Everyone has more than seven miles to the next office.
I think the Minister for Civil Affairs needs to step forward, take political responsibility for the reforms he makes and answer these questions.
Kalle Olsson (S)
Madam Speaker! The Minister is evading his responsibility in a remarkable way in this part. Statsens servicecenter shall therefore have to decide for themselves which offices are to disappear and which offices are to have poorer accessibility.
One cannot interpret that announcement in any other way than that it does not matter to the government where these service centers are located. Such a conclusion is in itself not so surprising but merely reflects the lax approach to localization issues and state activities that the government has shown until now.
But in order to still get some form of clarity on this issue from the Minister - can the Minister answer whether the government in this dialogue that the Minister has spoken about previously has set up, or at least intends to set up, some form of criteria for Statens servicecenter regarding how the operations should be prioritized in light of the upcoming savings? If there are no criteria and no requirements to, for example, specifically consider long distances and sparseness, the risk is obvious that it is precisely those service offices that perhaps are most important, where the state's presence is already very depleted, that will disappear.
Isak From (S)
Madam Speaker and Minister Slottner! We are happy to discuss cost-effectiveness. We are also happy to discuss the National Audit Office's report. As the Minister well knows, since he has also referred to the report in a previous debate, from a cost-effective governance perspective, it would be the absolutely most cost-effective thing to place the large agencies out in the country. There, one has lower premises costs, less staff turnover, and usually higher efficiency in its decisions. That would be taking responsibility and actually streamlining the use of state funds.
Maybe that will be the case - what do we know? Statens servicecenter might come to the conclusion that it is actually much more expensive to be located in the metropolitan areas and needs to reduce the floor space and focus more extensively in the countryside, maybe in Arvidsjaur, Lycksele, Vetlanda or Norberg - what do I know?
There is a great demand for the state services and also for the state to govern its agencies. We need to ensure that Arbetsförmedlingen, Försäkringskassan, Skattemyndigheten and so on are on board and are present at the state service centers. Here the government has a task - take it!
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Björk and Sköld can get answers to their questions when they stop misleading the viewers regarding SD's influence and role in the government we have in Sweden.
Regarding Kalle Olsson, who I think is asking a highly serious and relevant question about how the principles for the office operations should look going forward, it is as follows. What we are now putting into the budget, in addition to the reduction of 50 million, is that Statens servicecenter shall be given greater discretionary power over the establishment of offices around the country. We do not write that they shall be given full decision-making power, but they shall be given greater discretionary power when it comes to the localization of the offices.
Exactly what this will mean in practice, the government will have to return to. The budget, for example, has not been decided in the Riksdag yet, we should remember. Exactly what consequences this will have, we will therefore have to return to.
We see now, as I have also said previously, that we have a dialogue with the authority and are keeping ourselves informed about their analyses and how they view the situation moving forward. We will also develop starting points for the future organization. It is not, therefore, that the government leaves this completely to chance. But the decision itself regarding the location will entail a much larger mandate for the authorities. The government naturally needs, however, to develop some form of principles for how these decisions shall be made. It will, of course, be more than just efficiency reasons that will be guiding.
With this said, the National Audit Office's report nevertheless cannot be fully neglected. It shows that there are efficiencies that can be made within the agency's office operations, and in that regard, I think we should listen to it.
But all efficiency does not, as I have also said previously, need to occur by closing down different offices. It can be about adapting operations through mobile concepts. It can be about changed opening hours or co-locations in order to in this way lower the premises costs. In this way, one can actually kill two birds with one stone: lower the costs but still improve the operations. We will have to see what the analysis work that has been started at the agency will lead to.
I also want to say that in the posts here, it is assumed that it is only offices in the countryside that will be closed down. In that case, I think one is a bit hasty in their conclusions. I am not at all sure that it will only be that type of office that is closed down. It could very well be other offices that are closed down or have to adapt their operations. It is a bit too early to say that yet. We will come back to those answers.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! I cannot in any way force the Minister to either answer me or respect the Riksdag and the possibility of asking questions to the government in an interpellation debate and actually receive answers to them. But, Madam Speaker, all the people who today use the services from the service centers all over the country deserve answers as to what the government's plan is to reduce the resources to the service centers.
This debate shows that the SD government has completely abandoned the idea of state service and presence throughout the entire country, in combination with a whole series of other proposals that it has put forward. I am afraid that this will reduce the trust in and confidence for the state and Swedish authorities. It is a powerful and major reorganization of the policy that has been pursued during the last terms.
I am also afraid, Madam Speaker, that this increases the tensions between city and country and contributes to an increased polarization in our country. This is furthermore further exacerbated by the fact that the government does not here in the chamber want to take responsibility for its own proposals. Dare to stand by the choice of path! Point out where the SD government wants to make cuts to state services! Then we can at least have a sincere and honest debate about this.
But one thing is clear, Madam Speaker. We Social Democrats will continue to stand up for state presence and service throughout the entire country.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! The budget bill has not been decided – that is quite correct. But as the Minister points out, it has a majority in this chamber behind it, so we cannot expect anything other than that it will pass. No one would be happier than I if our budget alternative had won instead; then the reduction of the service centers would not have taken place. In this budget bill, the government writes: "The model where the government designates where each service center shall be established hinders Statens servicecenter from conducting a cost-effective operation." The analysis is therefore that political priorities regarding the agency's location hinder cost-effectiveness.
That assumption is based on experiences that both the Minister and previous governments have had since decades ago: If you release an agency somewhere in the country, it will roll towards Stockholm. If there is no ambition for a state presence throughout the entire country, there will not be any such presence either. Hard political steering will be required if the state presence is to be maintained. I note that the Minister abdicates from that ambition.
I heard him trying to answer Kalle Olsson's question just now. But there is no content in what he says, it is just "we will see." Perhaps some form of directive will be given to Statens servicecenter. We will see.
I would like to hear what the political ambition of Erik Slottner is. Are there to be offices in the whole country? And if cost-effectiveness is the reason – i.e., that there are too few visits per krona – why would one then not believe that it is the offices in the rural areas that will be closed? So that is if cost-effectiveness is the overriding priority in the government's policy.
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! That the government thinks it is important that the state should be cost-effective cannot come as any major surprise to the opposition. My three keywords as Civil Minister are precisely efficiency, simplification, and citizen benefit. These are three important values for the future of administrative policy. The state's service center actually contributes to all these three benefits, I also want to say.
That we in the budget do not govern the authorities in a way that hinders cost-effectiveness is also reasonable. If we have a governance that the Swedish National Audit Office considers hinders the authority's work of being cost-effective, I think it is a rather low-hanging fruit to change that governance and let it become like for almost all other authorities, i.e., that they have a very large right of disposal when it comes to their own operations. This regarding the operations and where, for example, different offices are placed is delegated.
This is no strange bird in Swedish public administration, if I may put it that way, that an authority is allowed to decide where to have its local offices somewhere. It is entirely in accordance with the Swedish administrative order. This is what we now want to give to Statens servicecenter.
The follow-up question on this then becomes: Is cost-effectiveness the only value moving forward for Statens servicecenter? No, it will not be. And as I also said in response to Kalle Olsson, the government is now working on developing overall guidelines or principles for this office establishment, but we are not finished with that yet. We will have to come back to this. Sometimes there are empty answers to questions if we do not have answers to give yet. If it is too early to give answers, it can be a bit empty sometimes. But the government must come back with answers to some of the questions that have emerged in this debate.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.