Response to interpellation 2023/24:517 on the social services' role in the work to break the recruitment to gangs
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the role of social services in the work against gang recruitment and the funding of the new Social Services Act. M believes that the government is active in preventive work through increased state grants and specific initiatives 1. M argues that an equal distribution of funds for analysis work is necessary for small municipalities 1 and that the distribution key should be based on population 2. M claims that the government has a constant dialogue with the municipalities and that a new Social Services Act was needed for early interventions. S argues that the government changed the calculation model without dialogue 3 4 and that the model is incorrect as it ignores the size and needs of the municipalities 5 6. S believes that the government has cut funding from the National Board of Health and Welfare 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Mattias Vepsä has asked me if I intend to take any measures in light of the fact that several of the country's municipalities are being forced into savings within the promoting and preventive work. Mattias Vepsä has also asked me if I have taken the initiative for an analysis of how the savings affect the work of breaking gang crime and if I can, in that case, account for the results. Mattias Vepsä has also asked me why I and the government have changed the calculation model after an agreement was reached with SKR and why I have not involved or held a dialogue with the municipalities before the conditions were changed. Mattias Vepsä has finally asked me if I see a risk that the work with previous interventions will be stopped and if I, in that case, intend to take any measures.
I want to emphasize that I, like Mattias Vepsä, believe it is important to strengthen social services in their preventive work to reduce new recruitment into criminal environments. I do, however, oppose the picture that Mattias Vepsä paints. The government is anything but passive in the preventive area.
That municipalities shall work on crime prevention is statutory. On July 1, 2023, the Act (2023:196) on municipalities' responsibility for crime prevention work entered into force. By reason of the new law, the municipalities have been compensated through an increase in the general state grants. Accordingly, the government has also, according to the financing principle, compensated the municipalities for this new area of responsibility.
From and including 2023, municipalities can also apply for state grants from the Crime Prevention Council for crime prevention measures. For 2024, 52 million kronor is allocated for this.
Furthermore, the government has made a three-year investment in preventive measures against specifically gang crime. For 2024, 80 million kronor are allocated, and for 2025 and 2026, 150 million kronor per year are estimated. In addition, the new Social Services Act will give the municipalities better conditions to work preventatively. In total, the government allocates 8 billion kronor over five years for implementation and transition work with the new Social Services Act.
Regarding Mattias Vepsäs' question on the distribution of preparatory funds before the entry into force of a new social services act, there is a need for clarifications.
In the budget proposal for 2024, the government announced the intention to present the new Social Services Act during 2024 for entry into force during 2025. The government also announced long-term support to the municipalities as well as an agreement with Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, SKR, during 2024-2028 to support the municipalities in the transition to a long-term sustainable, more preventive and knowledge-based social service. The government has, however, not entered into any dialogue with SKR regarding the distribution of the government grant or commented on the distribution to the municipalities.
On 1 February 2024, the government decided on the assignment to Socialstyrelsen to distribute the state grant to the municipalities, where it appears that the municipalities, during this preparatory year, may use the funds to carry out situation and needs analyses ahead of the new Social Services Act and that the funds are distributed with equal amounts.
I agree that the municipalities' conditions and areas of need ahead of the transition differ. But even small municipalities have a minimum cost for analyses and planning ahead of the transition. The distribution that the government has decided upon is a necessary distribution during 2024 so that small or smaller municipalities are given the conditions to prepare themselves and the opportunity to be part of the transition to a long-term sustainable social service. In the government decision on the funds for 2024, the intention has been to clarify that the government intends to develop a distribution key for coming years in the initiative. The government intends to return to the issue.
The fact that we are in a difficult economic situation complicates the municipalities' preventive work. I therefore see that the government's targeted investments in crime prevention work in the municipalities can truly make a difference.
Mattias Vepsä (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall for an interesting answer.
Initially, I believe that we here in the chamber and everyone who is watching the debate on web-TV should remind ourselves of the situation in which Sweden finds itself.
This interpellation is about how the social services should be able to work preventatively and promotively throughout the country in order to be able to provide support to the most vulnerable children and families in our country. In the response here and when I have debated here in the chamber over the past year, I unfortunately receive a cold reception.
The Social Democrats believe that we must do everything we can to break the new recruitment to gangs and do everything we can to meet the welfare crisis that the country's municipalities and regions are facing.
A new report was released this week from a number of civil society organizations stating that one in five single parents cannot afford to put food on the table so that the children can eat until they are full, and that 30 percent of cohabiting parents are worried about their finances. It affects the children's well-being and welfare.
At the same time, the country's municipalities are in an enormous welfare crisis. It is clear that it affects social services, because in a situation where we must do everything we can to keep children and young people away from criminal environments and break the recruitment, it is important that social services receive long-term conditions and rules of the game in order to be able to retain their staff and not have to lay off workers or save on those interventions.
In the same way, schools and leisure activities across the country are affected, that is, all those activities that we know keep children and young people away from criminal environments.
That is why I asked this question, and I hope to receive some answers in the debate.
I want to hold on to Stockholm. I am a Member of Parliament from Stockholm, and in Stockholm live 10 percent of the country's population.
I have looked at the government's website because one of the questions concerns the transition of the social services to the new Social Services Act, which we agree should give the social services better tools to work preventatively. The debate also concerns the fact that the money for this was announced in the autumn budget, i.e., in this year's budget. On the website, the local distribution of investments in the autumn budget was presented on September 15, 2023.
The allocation would have given Stockholm 18.6 million kronor to carry out a transition work in the city's eleven social services, which in itself corresponds to a medium-sized Swedish municipality. It is 10,000 employees in Stockholm's social services who need to receive an educational initiative.
When the municipalities took note of the distribution key in the autumn, a piece of work was initiated. Project managers were hired, staff were hired, and work was started to carry out the transition and train the staff to execute what we and the government agree on - to take steps in the new Social Services Act in order to be able to break the recruitment, work more preventatively, and have a stronger social service. So, we are not in disagreement there.
But then, on February 1, a new announcement came from the government stating that Stockholm receives 650,000 kronor. One is therefore losing 18 million kronor to carry out the transition work.
I do not think I have received an answer to that question here today. I hope that the Minister, in his second contribution, can state who made that decision, why it was made, and why the government could not announce it earlier – perhaps in connection with the budget.
Anna Vikström (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer to Mattias Vepsäs's interpellation.
I will speak about the part of the interpellation that concerns the calculation model for preparing for a new social services act.
The Government has stated in the budget bill for 2024 that a new Social Services Act will be presented during the year. The Government provided funds to the municipalities to carry out situation and needs analyses ahead of the new Social Services Act. This decision was based on the importance of local and regional analyses in order to be able to plan the social services' operations. A so-called indicative distribution to the municipalities was made and published, based on a model that took size into account, which appeared to be reasonable.
But it becomes too difficult to understand the government's reasoning when it is suddenly, very late, decided that all municipalities shall be allocated the same amount for analyses. The differences become enormous, not least for Stockholm, which Mattias Vepsä has emphasized and clearly illustrated.
Even in my own municipality, Sollentuna, the difference between the promised amount and the actual payment is almost 1 million. Sollentuna is one of the larger municipalities that has the greatest problems with segregation and crime, even in relation to the number of inhabitants, and the funds could have been used to much more effectively make a much-needed, serious preparation for the new law.
The implementation of these local analyses before this legislation must be taken seriously. It is obvious that more resources are required for large municipalities and organizations. The different messages are now truly creating confusion. A completely new calculation model is presented very late, a model that differs totally from the one published earlier.
The Minister for Social Services says in his post that the government has not commented on a distribution to the municipalities. What exists is a published county sheet from the Ministry of Finance titled Local distribution of initiatives in connection with the budget bill for 2024. It reached the municipalities in October 2023. Even though it states that the distribution is preliminary, it is very likely that the municipalities may have perceived that this is approximately how it will look because the distribution has been published and nothing has happened for months. Then the model is changed radically from being based on population size to being equal for everyone.
How has this calculation model, in the first place, been anchored with and communicated to the municipalities?
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Many thanks to the members for their questions! This is an important issue. That the Social Services Act, which we seem to be in complete agreement needs and needs to be implemented in a good way, is put in place and receives the right conditions is a very strong focus for the work I am doing.
I am, however, a bit concerned that parts of this interpellation seem to be based on misunderstandings and conscious or unconscious misconceptions. No decision has, therefore, been made in this matter, and this should also be something the municipalities are aware of. No dialogue has been held with SKR regarding the distribution of this state grant, and we have also not, from the government's side, commented on the distribution to the municipalities. Different calculation models are examples, and no decision has been made.
I believe it is important that the members from our large municipalities and constituencies also look into the camera towards all those people who live in the small municipalities. This is, in fact, an intended implementation.
Since the law itself does not enter into force until July 1, 2025, I was personally very pleased that the municipalities received 200 million to distribute in order to be able to carry out analysis and needs work. For me and the government, it is quite obvious that this work needs to be done regardless of whether one lives in Ale municipality or in Sollentuna. Had we distributed the money based on population, it would have resulted in a few thousand kronor for the really small municipalities. They would have therefore been completely left behind when it comes to being able to carry out this important analysis work.
I come from a small municipality myself and have worked in municipal politics for many years. I know that the conditions already look quite different from the start. While, for example, Sollentuna, whose social services I have visited, may have entire departments with specific focuses for the social services' important tasks, Mellerud perhaps has half a position for the same tasks. This shows quite clearly that if we are to make a transition of the social services that covers the entire country and not just the large municipalities, which already by virtue of their size have different conditions, it is very important that these funds are distributed equally across the entire country and that all municipalities receive the same amount.
I would like to emphasize, however, that when it comes to the coming years, for which the government has allocated a total of 7.8 billion, that is to say a total of 8 billion for the Social Services Act, a distribution key will be reported. That is naturally important; there, the question is completely different. When the Social Services Act is introduced, the distribution key will also be based on the number of inhabitants.
I hope that I have in this way answered the members' question regarding this part. I hope that in upcoming contributions we can also go into all the different measures that need to be taken so that the preventive work becomes truly effective.
Mattias Vepsä (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! There are many different ways to distribute state grants. We have seen over time how the distribution keys have changed, but we have also had the tradition that in the government's basis, one has received a direction that can be relied upon.
I know that Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, in his government statement, spoke about a government that has its feet on the ground. One can wonder where that footing went, since there has been no dialogue with SKR during these months, nor with the country's municipalities. I think that is quite remarkable.
I was myself raised in a small municipality on the western side of the country, Laholm. I know that municipalities look different and have different conditions. But I also know that very many people in our country are worried about the situation we have in the country's metropolitan areas, where the vast majority of the most vulnerable residential areas are located and where segregation is at its greatest. This problem exists, of course, all around the country.
I am concerned that the government is trying to cast a small smokescreen here and say that you are a large municipality and have to manage a bit on your own. I think it is remarkable. Here, one should have had a dialogue. One should have picked up the phone or perhaps made one's way over to the City Hall, in this case, and had a dialogue with Stockholm.
I sit in the Committee on Justice and see the other side of the coin, when one fails to break the recruitment. We agree that we must make a transition and achieve a stronger social service and get a stronger preventive work in place.
The Social Democrats have launched several new principles to, for example, secure the welfare by indexing the state grants to it. We have allocated more money to preventive measures for a cohesive and equal school; we see that the government has not matched this. We have maintained the investments in the National Board of Health and Welfare for preventive work that our government previously made, money that the government reduced from 250 to 80 million. In addition to the government's investments, we have allocated almost 1.9 billion for crime prevention work.
I therefore gladly welcome this debate on obtaining more and stronger tools to break the recruitment to the gangs. It is something we must step up and that we, from our perspective in the Justice Committee, feel we lack is precisely the realization that if we are to succeed in removing the gang criminals and removing the problems with the most violent groups in our society, we must also break the recruitment. If we are to succeed with this, it requires a coherent school system and a strong economic policy that helps the most vulnerable in our society.
On this point, however, I do not think we are quite in agreement. When I last looked at the government's budget and looked out at reality, I saw that more money is being spent on luxury-roots and luxury-routes. You dismiss a bank tax for the very richest and choose to shift the inflation fight onto ordinary people. As I began my first speech with, the situation is tough for many people in our country. We lack a government that has its finger on the pulse and that engages in dialogue with the country's municipalities on such important issues.
Anna Vikström (S)
Madam Speaker! To advocate for an equal distribution of funds to all municipalities to carry out analyses before the new Social Services Act is to overlook the real differences and needs between different municipalities. To claim that all should be treated equally in this regard is to ignore the fact that the municipalities have unique challenges, resources, and needs and, above all, completely different sizes of their organizations.
If a municipality is to conduct a serious analysis to prepare for an effective implementation of the Social Services Act – it is this that we are debating – the funds should have some kind of connection to the size of the municipality, but that is not the case. In Stockholm County, there are 17 municipalities that lose out on the new calculation model. I can absolutely imagine that it could have looked different without the funds being smeared out equally across all of Sweden, i.e., so that it would be exactly the same for every municipality.
I believe there could have been intelligent and good calculation models that would not have made, for example, the city of Stockholm a big loser in this. I am actually very surprised that it has gone about in this way.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! I can assure the members that the government has a constant dialogue with SKR and with our municipalities. I devote a large part of my total working time to traveling around Sweden's various municipalities, to visit them and to listen to them. Out in the municipalities, it sounds quite similar when it comes to the needs. Among other things, a new Social Services Act is needed to obtain other conditions to work early, preventively and long-term.
It is very good that we have the municipalities and the social services behind us when we make such a large change. The law that currently applies is from the 1980s and has been patched and repaired for a long time. Now it needs to be changed.
What has been a part of my great concern is that the investigation that met me when I arrived as a new Minister for the Ministry of Social Affairs was based on directives from the previous Minister for Social Affairs, Lena Hallengren. The investigator had received specific directives that the new law must not be cost-driving. I say it once more, because it is astonishing: In a time when it was already known that we had a large and growing crime and a recruitment of very young people into gang crime, the Social Democratic Minister for Social Affairs gave the investigator a specific directive that the law must not be cost-driving.
Margareta Winberg points out in her investigation a number of different things that need to happen. Now we are investigating and looking at them in order to make this effective.
At one of the first meetings I had with SKR, Föreningen Sveriges socialchefer, Akademikerförbundet and Vision, I asked the question: Should we proceed with the existing investigation, or should we wait for the ongoing work? This government has higher ambitions than the previous one for the Social Services Act to become efficient and achieve what we want it to achieve. Their answer was: Let us proceed with the part that exists in order to then build upon it!
We now have a number of investigations that will be included in the Social Services Investigation in different ways, but it is important to bear in mind that with different circumstances from the previous government, there could have been completely different conditions for the social services to begin their work on July 1, 2025, which is the planned date for entry into force. The referral to the Council on Legislation is planned to take place during the summer, and the bill is to be submitted to the Riksdag during late autumn or early winter. My hope is that we will be able to stick to the entry into force date of July 1, 2025.
Another important part is a changed secrecy legislation, where the municipalities' education administration and social services administration – that is, the school and social services – and the police shall be able to sit around the same table and have discussions about interventions for children and young people at a very early stage. In addition, the possibility was needed to ensure that parents receive an expanded parental responsibility. We have a great responsibility as parents, and the vast majority of parents also take this responsibility. But where that does not occur, we must be able to ensure that parents are involved in a clearer way and that social services also receive tools to achieve that.
Mattias Vepsä (S)
Madam Speaker! I would like to thank you for a good debate so far.
I want to stay a little bit with the question of dialogue with the municipalities. I read in the response that has been sent to me before the debate and which has also been presented here in the chamber: "The Government has, however, not held any dialogue with SKR regarding the distribution of the state grant or commented on the distribution to the municipalities." But at the same time, the Minister has therefore had a continuous dialogue with the municipalities, which is pleasing. I have also seen in the newspaper that the Minister is out traveling. We should not exaggerate this, but just in this question, a dialogue has indeed been lacking.
At the same time, the Minister has been out and met with the country's municipalities. In that case, the issue should have been taken up with the country's municipal representatives – the transition of the social services is perhaps one of the largest reforms in this area. Thus, the question remains why such a complete change has been made to the way this is calculated that Stockholm loses 18 million kronor for the transition.
It becomes, so to speak, a competition over who understands the country best. We obviously have different backgrounds. But the social services in Stockholm are, in practice, eleven different social services with 10,000 employees, and they have their own challenges, while smaller municipalities have other challenges because they have fewer employees.
But does the Minister of State think that 650,000 kronor is reasonable for this transition work? How have the discussions gone in the government: Has the Minister of State stood up for a different distribution, or have you been completely in agreement that it is this distribution that shall apply, even though it hits Stockholm so hard?
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Mattias Vepsä, for this debate! It is important, and I hope that it is clarifying.
As I have underlined on several occasions, I travel around the entire country. It is clear that if one had had a calculation model based on how many inhabitants the municipality has, the really small municipalities would have only received small amounts of money. I hope that Mattias Vepsä and I agree on that. It would have been about a few tens of thousands of kronor, and they would not have been able to make much of a difference in the important work involved when transitioning to a new Social Services Act.
The 18.7 million that Mattias Vepsä speaks about have never been decided. They have never been included in any distribution key that has been decided upon by the government. But we also cannot make decisions based on the distribution principle of how many inhabitants the different municipalities have, because there are many municipalities that are very small. It worries me a bit that Mattias Vepsä seems to have forgotten his background. The conditions are tougher with a social service that is much smaller than what a large city has.
I have the deepest respect for the challenges that many of our large cities face. The challenges are also spreading to increasingly smaller municipalities and mean that the work must be done just as extensively there. It is not just about crime prevention measures, but about interventions for, among other things, children and young people in very vulnerable situations. And children and young people are in vulnerable situations across our entire country.
Would the really small municipalities really lose out if 600,000 or 610,000 kronor meant that they could not be included. I do not think that Mattias Vepsä would have wanted to see that either. The government definitely does not want that. The whole country must be part of the journey towards a new social services act.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.