Government administration and statistics issues
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M believes that state administration and governance are crucial for resources to suffice for priorities 1. M wants to focus on efficiency, simplification, and digitalization, including the use of AI to reduce bureaucracy 1. M supports that agencies are merged and that smaller agencies are phased out to create a change-ready organization 1. S argues that the government is dismantling local public service by closing service offices, which undermines trust in the state 2. S wants to stop state activities from renting premises owned by criminals 2. V wants the government to explicitly work towards agencies stopping the use of staffing companies 3. V wants to re-nationalize all properties used for tax-funded activities 3.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Adam Reuterskiöld (M)
Madam Speaker! State administration, governance, and statistics are one of the most important areas we have to debate here in the chamber. I am actually genuinely surprised that more of us are not interested in this area. The state governance model is about how we move from a political decision to change in operations and is crucial for how we in the future will make the resources suffice for the things we want to prioritize.
In the budget proposals for both 2024 and 2025, the government states that citizen benefit, efficiency, and simplification are guiding principles for all state activities and that the state administration shall always be open to reassessment and prioritization. Politics is to prioritize, and then not only between what we shall do and not do, but it is also to make trade-offs between different interests.
Madam Speaker! The world is changing, not least in recent weeks. In the last few days, perhaps even the last few hours, we see how changes that we almost did not believe were possible are coming true. Our world is affected by many factors, and a long-term perspective in politics and planning may perhaps not be as possible to maintain in the future. Our ability to change will be the only constant in the future's equation. The country that has the opportunity to change most quickly and best will win in the long run, and the win in this case is that the country's citizens benefit from growth and better living conditions.
State governance today is built on much of the individual departments', authorities', and agencies' own operations. Coordination and objectives that span across several parts of society are the exceptions. We will need to create conditions for constant change work both within and between the different parts of state and municipal administration. That work can be divided into two parts: doing things right and doing the right things.
How do we then do things right? The state's governance must focus on being clear, goal-oriented, and focused on overall benefit. There is great potential here to clarify processes and simultaneously work with digitalization. AI is a tool that will be used in our processes and ways of working with great success.
The Government has tasked Statskontoret and Ekonomistyrningsverket with developing methods to better be able to review the state's activities and expenditures. It is noteworthy that these two agencies are also to be merged for further efficiency. Much of the methods and ways of working can be copied or proudly stolen from other parts of society that have worked with this longer than the public sector.
Naturally, Madam Speaker, we must also have constant economic monitoring so that all parts stay within the budget frameworks. Sometimes budget reductions will be necessary. This type of cost reduction is often likened to a cheese slicer. It has pros and cons, as it hits just as hard against efficient operations as against inefficient ones. But it can also be a way to initiate change and efficiency processes in many operations.
The Government has received the report A more efficient organization of smaller agencies – analysis and proposals from the Inquiry into a review of smaller agencies' tasks and organization. In the inquiry's proposals, it is stated that eleven smaller agencies should be phased out, that nine agencies' tasks and activities should be merged with other agencies, and that seven agencies' tasks should be transferred to other agencies.
Madam Speaker! Much of what is cost-driving is caused by decisions taken in individual parts of the state but which affect other parts of society. This leads me to the next area: doing the right things.
What do I mean by that, Madam Speaker? An agency is governed by a department that focuses on, and perhaps is limited to, a certain type of activity. This can, however, have far-reaching implications for the rest of society and create enormous costs for other parts of society.
One example is Arbetsmiljöverket, which today works with the work environment and also focuses on ensuring that injuries do not occur, that is, non-existent or as yet non-existent problems. This can naturally be of great benefit to operations, but it can also cause enormous costs before the problems occur. It may seem to be Arbetsmiljöverket's responsibility to ensure what costs these rules cause. These increased costs could perhaps be of better use in other parts of the state's operations.
Madam Speaker! We must create a governance and management model that effectively distributes assignments and resources so that they provide the most benefit for the citizens and more benefit for fewer resources. We must also work more with simplifications, something that even the EU has adopted. The Government has previously directed reporting requirements regarding simplifications to about thirty agencies in their regulatory letters for 2024 in order to reduce the regulatory burden and the administrative costs for companies as well as improve their contacts with authorities.
The government has also tasked Tillväxtverket with producing a knowledge base and investigating the possibilities for government agencies to use AI. Now we are taking further steps to increase the use of AI. It contributes to both more efficient ways of working within the state and simplifications for companies. AI has great potential to reduce bureaucracy, improve the conditions for companies, and increase the benefit to citizens, according to Civil Minister Erik Slottner. We are facing a paradigm shift. We must create a readiness for change in the state organizations, which focuses on efficiency and maximizing benefits.
With what has been stated, Madam Speaker, I move for approval of the committee's proposal for a decision.
Peder Björk (S)
Madam Speaker! I think we talk far too little about administrative policy. We discuss it far too little, and above all, we debate it far too little.
Administrative policy is about how we want our state, public, authorities and operations to carry out their mandates and how we create the conditions for the state operations to carry out their mandates. At the basis of this also lies an administrative policy goal, which shall be governing for the administrative policy that is conducted in Sweden.
An important part of the administrative policy goal is that there should be well-developed service and accessibility to public activities. It was against the background of that objective that previous Social Democratic governments during the last mandate periods before this one were offensive in the administrative policy debate and also when it came to various proposals.
To ensure accessibility to public services, the then Social Democratic government submitted many proposals regarding the relocation and relocalization of state activities from the metropolitan areas out across the country. An important part of the administrative policy concerned ensuring access to public state services locally throughout the country by expanding the state's service offices.
The Social Democratic policy ensured that there were 148 state service offices across the entire country at the beginning of this year. Authorities such as Skatteverket, Arbetsförmedlingen, and Försäkringskassan offer public service at a local office where people can get help with their matters. It is an activity that addresses many people. The service offices had 2.8 million visits across the country last year. They helped with 3.3 million matters. It is about local presence of state public service throughout the country.
Madam Speaker! Now the SD government is dismantling local public services. A quarter of the service offices are to be closed because the SD government has decided that 150 million kronor shall be saved. Already this year and next year, 29 offices will close all around the country. It is, of course, a hard blow to the possibility of accessing public services at a local, physical office. But it is also serious for another reason. It undermines trust in the state and the public sector. In the long run, it undermines the cohesion in our country if the trust that the state is present throughout the entire country does not exist.
Madam Speaker! In the midst of talk about trust and cohesion, organized crime is spreading across the country, and it is also eroding trust and cohesion. This applies in particular to economic crime.
The SD government is usually tough in the debate on crime when it concerns gang criminals and individuals who commit crimes. But one is perhaps not always equally tough against, for example, economic crime in the form of tax evasion and tax avoidance. One has also not seriously addressed the crime that is directed against public activities.
We now see, for example, that gang criminals own HVB homes all over the country without the government doing anything about it. We also see that gang criminals own properties where state activities rent themselves in. There, we Social Democrats are very clear: The government should take the initiative to take measures to stop state activities from renting themselves into properties when it feeds the criminal economy. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I move for approval of reservation 6 in the report that we are now discussing. We Social Democrats want to send a clear signal to the government to take measures in that area.
Madam Speaker! Finally, something about statistics. It is part of this report. Statistics is, as we all know, an important basis for us to get a picture of the societal development. It is also an important basis for decision-making for us politicians. Therefore, I think it is regrettable when the SD government now, for example, does not want to proceed with introducing a debt register. They also do not want to ensure that there is an asset register, even though we are in a situation with the absolutely toughest economic times in a very long time. It actually would have been good if we had had access to such a register and could have seen what the development looks like.
But it is clear – in some areas we need no statistics. It is enough to go to the grocery store and check what we have to pay for the food. We do not need any statistics to describe the cost crisis we are in. But it would have been good if the government had at least taken in what the authorities say about the difficult economic situation we find ourselves in right now. We know that families with children all over the country are having difficulty putting nutritious food on the table. The cost for households' food purchases has increased by 30,000 kronor.
These things, of course, could not have been solved by an active administrative policy, but an active SD government could have solved them if one had wanted to take measures. One could have used the authorities that exist to carry out one's policy, and in that case, an active administrative policy would have been very good. With such a policy, one could also have strengthened the trust and cohesion in this country.
Samuel Gonzalez Westling (V)
Madam Speaker! It is no secret that the Left Party is not a strong advocate for staffing agencies, rather the opposite. We do not think they are suitable for the Swedish labor market.
Investigations show that state agencies are increasingly hiring staffing companies both for the agencies' support functions and for work in the agencies' core activities, that is, in the exercise of authority. In addition to the obvious problem of private companies operating within state agencies and thereby gaining an influence over authority, there are further problems with this. It creates, for example, a division of the staff so that those hired from staffing companies face a higher threshold for participation and influence at work. We in Vänsterpartiet therefore believe that the government, in its employer policy, should explicitly work to ensure that agencies stop using staffing companies.
Madam Speaker! Unemployment among persons with disabilities is higher than for the population as a whole. Persons with disabilities who are seeking jobs should be met based on their resources and assets and not based on what obstacles exist. Against that background, the government should resume the initiative on internship placements within the state. This time, it should involve fewer agencies and have a clearer focus on the internship placement leading to a job.
State administration and statistics issues
We naturally stand behind all our reservations in the report, but I wish to move for approval only to reservation 7.
Even though many of the judicial system's properties are owned by Specialfastigheter, the judicial system also rents premises from private property owners. When socially important properties are owned by companies with links to serious crime, it is very serious. That companies with links to serious crime have the opportunity to earn money from tax-funded activities is nothing other than a pure failure. That socially beneficial properties are sold off or built and managed by private real estate companies is also a general problem. It is not reasonable that private owners can make large profits on properties used for tax-funded activities such as police stations, courts, and institutions.
In order to better be able to steer social development, collective ownership needs to increase instead of decrease. Therefore, the government should take the initiative to re-nationalize all properties, such as police stations, jails, courts and institutions, for the purpose of stopping criminals from making profits from such activities.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.