Response to interpellation 2024/25:253 on criminal actors and HVB homes
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M argues that the government is acting forcefully against unserious actors by strengthening Ivo 1 and creating new activities and supervision to combat welfare crime 2. M emphasizes that secrecy rules should be adapted to share information to secure healthcare 3 4 and wants to implement a paradigm shift towards preventive work 2. S considers it necessary that the exchange of information also goes from law enforcement agencies to municipalities 5 and proposes a permit requirement as well as faster business bans 6. S argues that the government is now acting on policies they championed in opposition 3. SD argues that the government is acting quickly against welfare crime 7 and is working to tighten supervision 8.
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! Lars Isacsson has asked the Minister for Justice what he, within his area of responsibility, and the government intend to do to ensure a safe environment for young people in HVB homes and strengthen supervision to prevent malpractice and unserious actors. The work within the government is distributed such that it is I who shall answer the interpellation.
I view very seriously the deficiencies that have emerged regarding homes for care or housing, that is to say HVB, which means that children and young people in the society's care do not receive the care and support they need and are entitled to. The Government is now acting forcefully on several fronts to prevent unserious actors from running HVB.
The Inspectorate for Health and Social Services, Ivo, has an important role in the work against unscrupulous and criminal actors through its licensing and supervisory mandate. At the beginning of 2024, the Government gave Ivo a mandate to strengthen and develop its work to prevent and counter welfare crime and the presence of unscrupulous actors within care. In September 2024, the Government gave Ivo an additional mandate, namely to specifically strengthen the supervision of group homes and HVB (residential care for children and young people) that receive children and young people. Through these mandates and other measures, Ivo has received a reinforcement of 30 million kronor for 2024.
During the autumn, we have met several times with Ivo, the Swedish Police Authority, and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority to establish which concrete measures need to be taken and to ensure that the authorities cooperate effectively to prevent criminals from running or infiltrating HVB. The Government is following the issue closely.
An important part of the government's work on this issue is to improve the possibilities for central actors to exchange relevant information. The government has received the report Increased information exchange between authorities (SOU 2024:63), where a new provision is proposed that shall make it possible for authorities and municipalities to, under certain conditions, share confidential information about individuals with one another if this is needed to, among other things, counter criminal activity. The government has also, in the bill Increased information flow to law enforcement (prop. 2024/25:65), presented proposals that municipalities, regions and a large number of state authorities shall be obliged to provide information to law enforcement.
When it comes to ensuring that no children or young people are placed in HVB where there are substandard conditions or in HVB operated by criminals, the municipalities have an important role. They have a duty to closely monitor the care of the children and young people cared for in HVB and to follow up on activities that have been handed over to a private provider through an agreement.
Some children and young people need to be placed in a residential care home (HVB). In that case, the care there must maintain good quality and meet their needs. The Government has appointed an inquiry with the mandate to analyze how an increased differentiation of care at HVB can be achieved to better meet the individual care needs and rights of children and young people. The inquiry shall also look at the conditions for introducing special powers at HVB to give staff the tools to maintain safety and security for the children and the young people. Furthermore, the Government has appointed a national coordinator for more high-quality care places within social child and youth care, which among other things shall contribute to ensuring the quality of care for children and young people.
Children and young people who are placed outside their own home always have the right to protection and support. Therefore, it is completely unacceptable that there are substandard conditions and unprofessional actors within HVB care. Everyone who can have a role in the work must take responsibility and contribute to a better social care for these children. I am keen to do everything in my power so that children and young people in social care feel safe and receive good care.
Lars Isacsson (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. I share the Minister's view on how serious the problem is and welcome the commitment.
My question is prompted by the serious deficiencies we see in the country's HVB homes, which the Minister described in his answer. Particularly serious is that there are currently HVB homes run by precisely those criminal actors whom we want the children to avoid contact with. Both the affected youths and society at large should be able to feel safety in every placement. No one should be harmed in an HVB home, and it must definitely not be the case that anyone is recruited into criminal activity at their HVB home.
SVT has reported on a 15-year-old in Dalarna who was subjected to a recruitment attempt at an HVB home; he was to be persuaded to carry out a contract killing. Another youth, living in an HVB home in Hedemora, managed to escape with the goal of committing a murder in Gothenburg. Such examples exist from all over Sweden.
The Minister replied that the government wants to make it easier to share information. I think this is absolutely necessary. However, the rules the Minister referred to are mostly about law enforcement agencies being able to access the information. I believe it is at least equally important that the exchange of information also goes in the other direction.
What feels absolutely strangest to me is that the municipalities that are to make decisions on far-reaching and intrusive interventions, such as HVB home placements, do not have the right to access information such as that an HVB home is operated by criminal persons. When elected lay politicians are to make decisions on procuring a very important function, the municipality's officials can therefore not obtain background information regarding very decisive ownership conditions due to confidentiality rules.
Madam Speaker! We have in this chamber made a number of decisions to ease secrecy and give authorities the opportunity to share information with one another, but in this area it is as if it has hardly moved forward at all. I cannot help but wonder why it is so difficult. There is an obvious public interest in a municipality being able to find out if the HVB home it is about to procure is run by persons with links to organized crime. If the police have this information, why is it then that the police are not allowed to share it?
How can it be, as Sveriges Radio has reported, that HVB homes that have been investigated for over 100 alarms and received serious criticism during such reviews can continue their operations? How can it be possible that serious conditions that have persisted year after year are covered by secrecy rules?
Madam Speaker! I believe many of us are wondering when sharp proposals will come from the government regarding new, confidentiality-breaking rules on the fact that the police may and shall share information with the municipalities.
Nima Gholam Ali Pour (SD)
Madam Speaker! The Social Democratic member Lars Isacsson raised in an interpellation question the fact that criminal actors are now operating HVB homes. Unfortunately, that is how it looks in today's Sweden. While the previous Social Democratic government pampered the so-called Sweden image and refused to acknowledge many of the problems that characterized this country, criminal actors strengthened their positions and infiltrated institutions that we never thought they could infiltrate.
It is not just about HVB homes. Even the Social Democrats and ABF in Botkyrka have been infiltrated by organized crime. Criminals are trying – and succeeding – to infiltrate the justice system, social services, and all other institutions they need to infiltrate to achieve their goals. This has been ongoing for a longer period, and the previous Social Democratic government tried to put a lid on it. When the Social Democratic government finally acknowledged the problem, as late as 2019, Stefan Löfven told everyone to their surprise that the Social Democrats did not see it coming. The surprise was due to the fact that the Social Democrats had missed all the shootings and explosions that shocked the rest of the country.
What Stefan Löfven and the Socialdemokratern had not seen or did not want to see was that the number of shootings in Sweden during 2018 amounted to 325, where 43 people were killed and 140 were injured. The Socialdemokratern had not seen this, but the rest of the country had seen it. It was only the Socialdemokratern who did not see it coming.
The Social Democrats also did not see the 90 explosions that took place in Sweden during 2018. If the Social Democrats did not see it coming and if the Social Democrats did not address the organized crime in good time, they are part of the reason why organized crime has strengthened its positions, because at that time it was the Social Democrats who were responsible.
The HVB homes are one of many institutions in Sweden that criminals have infiltrated because the Social Democrats did not want to see the problems that we others saw. Welfare crime - where criminal actors earn money in various ways from our welfare systems - is a problem that existed even under the Social Democratic government. But what did the Social Democrats do about it? Not much, and we now see that criminals are running HVB homes.
The current government has shown a decisiveness that was lacking in the Social Democrats. Among other things, the Tidö parties have allocated funds so that the Inspectorate for Health and Social Services can inspect every HVB home and clear out the criminals. This raises the question: Why did the Social Democrats not do this? Did they not see it coming, even though the rest of society experienced the presence of organized crime?
These problems have existed for a long time. The previous Social Democratic government should have seen it coming and acted much earlier. But they did not, instead they betrayed the Swedish people.
Sara Gille (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Today we are discussing something as serious as irregularities and crime within HVB homes.
HVB-homes should be a safe place for young people in need of support, but instead we see examples of these operations being taken over by criminal actors who profit from tax money. This is a massive betrayal of the young people who are placed there and also of society as a whole.
It is remarkable, Mr. Speaker, that the Social Democrats now, while sitting in opposition, suddenly see this as an acute problem. Where was this commitment during the eight years they sat in power? What did the previous government do to address the problems with lack of supervision and criminal actors within HVB homes? The truth is that, at best, one chose to look the other way and, at worst, allowed the problems to grow.
Mr. Speaker! The Sweden Democrats have for a long time pointed out the need for stricter controls, better supervision and clearer guidelines to prevent unserious actors from being able to run HVB homes.
This government has already begun the work of improving supervision and ensuring that HVB homes are the safe environment they are intended to be. But we must still ask ourselves: How could the Socialdemokrater let it go this far?
We know that municipalities that want to act against unserious actors do not even have access to the information they need from the police, which is unacceptable. This requires cooperation between authorities, stricter requirements, and consistent follow-ups. This is what the government, with the Sweden Democrats as a guarantor for a powerful crime policy, is now working to implement.
We must clearly mark that HVB homes must never become a cash box for criminal networks or a risk zone for young people. That time is over, and we must never back down from our responsibility to care for and protect the young people who need us most.
Therefore, I want to ask Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall the following: How does the government ensure that authorities receive the resources and tools required to identify and act against criminal actors within HVB homes, and what is the timeline for this important work?
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Mr. Speaker! Ensuring increased safety and increased security for society's most vulnerable children is one of the government's highest priorities, and we are now working consistently - brick by brick - to build this cathedral of increased safety. It is about a new Social Services Act that provides the conditions to begin working early, preventatively and proactively towards those children and young people who are in a vulnerable situation.
We hope to soon be able to present the bill that makes this possible and which will mark a paradigm shift or, if one prefers, a perspective shift in Swedish politics where we begin to turn the ship around and where we work preventatively and see the children early.
When it concerns children and young people in social care, it should be a matter of course that they can feel safe there. I fully share the interpellant's view that a child who is in social care shall be guaranteed to receive care and treatment and not risk being exposed to, for example, attempts to be recruited for horrific acts of violence. This is something that I strongly oppose.
That is why we have now taken a unified grip on this issue. I want to remind that Ivo, which is the supervisory authority we have for this purpose, during the previous parliamentary term submitted a list of 40 legislative proposals, which the previous government unfortunately chose to more or less bury in a bureaucratic drawer, but which we are now working on consistently.
As several of the questioners and participants in this debate point out, it is about being able to access the correct information. It concerns criminal records and much more in order to be able to ensure that one can make the correct assessment when, for example, granting permission to operate an HVB home. These conditions have not existed sufficiently, but now we are ensuring them.
From the government's side, we see the efforts we made at the beginning of 2024, when we gave a mandate to change Ivo as a supervisory authority. From previously being an authority that has controlled quality with the help of employed social workers and nurses, Ivo must now build up a different function. In September, we gave a mandate concerning the exercise of supervision of every HVB home that exists in this country, and we added 9 extra million kronor for this mandate.
We see now that through the Police Authority and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, together with the Swedish Tax Agency, which has also been linked to this work, we are getting a completely new operation and a new supervision. Since September, 15 HVB homes have been closed, but the work does not end there, my friends, but it must naturally continue until we have dealt with the welfare crime that exists deep within the core of the welfare system, where it hurts the most. It is there that we have our most vulnerable children.
Lars Isacsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer, even though my core question perhaps remains.
The Minister refers in his answer to the municipalities' obligation to follow up. I would wish that it also were given the possibility, already at the procurement stage, to follow up on which stakeholders have links to criminals. Then, as the Minister touched upon, the exchange of information must be improved. It is still only a breach of confidentiality in one direction. It becomes a very skewed weighting, and this does not lead to increased trust between municipalities and the police.
It is obviously important that the municipalities follow up on their decisions and procurements, but it should be equally obvious that before doing so, they should be given access to the police's knowledge regarding which HVB homes are run by criminals. TT reported on December 19 that the City of Stockholm is not allowed to know which HVB homes are, according to the police, run by criminals because the Administrative Court of Appeal has ruled that that information is confidential. This horrible market failure and the more than lawfully naive view of companies as tools for crime demonstrate the importance of a rapid legislative change in an issue that there should be broad agreement on in the Riksdag.
The Committee on Enterprise held an open hearing before Christmas on companies as tools for crime, and at that time, proposals for concrete measures were received from both Svenskt Näringsliv as well as Noa, the Economic Crime Authority, and academia. I shall mention two of those proposals. The first was perhaps of a more preventive nature and concerned a licensing requirement within the welfare sectors that the serious economic crime targets, including health centers, vaccination clinics, and HVB homes. The second was perhaps of a more repressive nature and concerned that it must be easier and faster to issue business bans for those individuals who cynically and ruthlessly exploit both the common good in the form of tax funds and people in very vulnerable positions.
Mr. Speaker! The two concrete proposals are received by the Minister as a message. She may perhaps comment on whether it is something the government has taken away from the Business Committee's hearing.
I also want to comment on what the SD members have spoken about in this debate. They raised the absurdity of criminal actors being able to run HVB homes and gave examples of infiltration. I think, just like they do, that criminals' infiltration into society is something very serious. A number of examples were highlighted, but I heard nothing about guests at party leaders' weddings. That Social Democrats and Sweden Democrats have different views on profits in welfare is also clear and well-known.
When you are involved in governing - now SD is in its third year - it can be difficult to take responsibility. It is always easier to criticize what others have done previously. I myself have been involved in governing in a municipality - admittedly not a country, like the Minister. But when a period of the mandate has passed, it is no longer possible to blame one's predecessors, and one must take responsibility oneself.
Today I received an answer from the Riksdag's investigation service to my question regarding how many of the reports submitted by the Committee on Justice were initiated by the Social Democrats. It was 30 of the 42 reports from the election until today. To claim that we did nothing and that SD and the government have pushed forward at a historically high pace of reform may not provide a complete picture.
Nima Gholam Ali Pour (SD)
Mr. Speaker! I still believe it is important to talk about how quickly this government has acted. The problems were built up over a long period under the previous Social Democratic government, which was busy sugar-coating the situation. Now we see the effects of the welfare crime that has been built up.
The government has, among other things, tasked the Health and Social Care Inspectorate to, in cooperation with the Swedish Police Authority and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, take measures to improve the exchange of information in order to strengthen the supervision of HVB homes. The Health and Social Care Inspectorate has also been tasked to submit proposals on how recurring situation reporting on welfare crime should be conducted. These are actually fundamental measures to begin a fight against the activities of organized crime within the welfare system. Nevertheless, these measures were not taken by the previous Social Democratic government.
A strong justice system is required to prosecute the criminals in society and to prevent them from ever running HVB homes. No one can deny that it is precisely this government that has invested the most in the justice system in a long time? Furthermore, the justice system receives the powers needed to seriously combat organized crime.
All of this are things that the Socialdemokraterna could have done when they had power. But for some strange reason, they refrained from this – perhaps because they did not see the problems coming or because they were too naive. But it was the Swedish people who paid the price for the Socialdemokraterna's incompetence.
Sara Gille (SD)
Mr. Speaker! HVB homes should be a safe place for young people. They should not be a crime scene for criminals. It is difficult to understand how it could have gone so far that criminal actors are allowed to run operations that receive millions in tax money. It is money that, in some cases, goes straight into the pockets of criminal networks. But that is exactly what it has become after eight years of passivity under the previous government.
The Social Democrats are asking questions now that they are in opposition. But where was that commitment when they themselves were actually in power? When the oversight failed, the warnings poured in, and the conditions worsened, they chose not to act. They criticize a system they themselves had responsibility for managing. It is not credible.
The Sweden Democrats have long demanded measures against the deficiencies we see in the HVB system. Thanks to our strong position in the government support, we now see action instead of empty words. We are working to tighten supervision, stop the criminals, and put the safety of young people first.
Mr. Speaker! We do not intend to let HVB-homes continue to be a playground for criminals. That time is over.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Mr. Speaker! I begin by pointing out to Member Isacsson that it is generally the case that when announcements are made from the majority here in the Swedish Riksdag, the sitting government is also forced to act.
Regarding the initiatives the member refers to, I can say that if the question regarding RUT had been different, the answer would have been different. It would instead have been about how many announcements the Committee on Justice made that forced the previous Social Democratic government to appoint investigations. There is, in fact, no committee in the Swedish Riksdag that made more announcements than the Committee on Justice during the previous parliamentary term.
Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer is now acting on investigations that may have been commissioned by a Social Democratic government but were commissioned after, among other things, Moderate, Liberal, Christian Democratic, and Sweden Democrat motions. That is how the work proceeds in democracy's Sweden. It is thus largely so that our government now gets the opportunity to act on the policy we powerfully pushed for in opposition.
The issue of secrecy is extremely important in this context. That is also why, in my initial response, I described that the report Increased information exchange between authorities means that under certain conditions, one should be able to share confidential information with each other if it is needed to, among other things, counter criminal activity. The Government is currently working on the Council of Legislation's referral response. The authorities must be able to easily share necessary information with each other.
I have not seen the intelligence report that is often mentioned in the media. I shouldn't either, because it is precisely an intelligence report from the police, according to the information that the police have provided to me. I believe that most of us understand that it is difficult to hand over intelligence information completely openly and publicly.
When we close the criminal HVB homes, it must be with such a basis that they do not risk being reopened. Children must be protected from such criminal activity and not be affected by it starting up again. I believe, therefore, that it is time for us to approach the intelligence report with some sense and balance. I believe that most of us understand that it would harm the possibilities of closing them if all this kind of information were completely public.
With that said, it is important that the municipalities follow the responsibility they have, but also that they are given better conditions for doing so.
Last week, I was very pleased that the government could present the agreement we now have with SKR. While we await the establishment of a national placement function and while that is being worked on, SKR will take responsibility for that function. The assignment also includes that SKR shall receive information and conduct dialogue with, among others, the Swedish Police Authority and other relevant agencies. There, the municipalities will have locations proposed so that they can feel more secure that the place where children are sent from their municipality is a safe and secure place. That is the objective.
Lars Isacsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you to Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall for the debate!
The last thing, the agreement with SKR, I think is good. It is also good that SKR steps in and takes that responsibility. It is a pity that the state agency that is supposed to do this has not gotten it in place already, but this is probably a good interim solution.
An experience that all politicians should have is to at some point during their political career be a member of a social committee or an individual committee. It often provides a frightening insight into how difficult cases can exist in a municipality, not least among vulnerable children and young people.
One of the hardest decisions you can make as a politician is to deprive parents of responsibility for their own child according to the Act concerning Certain Conditions for the Care of Young People, LVU. You are responsible for ensuring that this child receives a better upbringing outside of their own family. It is also a decision that costs a very large amount of money - not infrequently more than 10,000 kronor per day. You have a municipal executive board pressuring you because the social services are not sticking to their budget, and you are expected to make these decisions. For a smaller municipality, such a placement affects the entire social services budget.
Mr. Speaker! It is a great frustration to know that there is a risk that this child will be placed in a HVB home run by criminals. That child runs the risk of being recruited into serious crime, and the municipality's expensive costs go to the criminal gangs. Imagine the frustration if you know that the police know quite a lot about which of the HVB homes are criminal but are not allowed to tell you in the municipality due to corporate secrecy.
Mr. Speaker! The Government needs to urgently address this and come to the Riksdag with a bill where the police are allowed and required to share knowledge about HVB homes run by criminals.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Mr. Speaker! Many thanks to Lars Isacsson for this interpellation!
It almost feels as if the interpellor and I have sat at the same social welfare committee table and the same municipal executive board table in a small municipality that is hit extremely hard by a number of placements. I too have had those assignments – it was actually my first assignment in my municipality to sit in the social welfare committee. After that, I sat in the education committee, so I have had the overall picture of children who are faring poorly for quite a long time.
That is why this shift in perspective and this reorganization is so important. The entire work with Swedish child and youth care is now being reorganized by this government. We must work with early prevention so that every child in Sweden gets a chance to have a bright and good future. Gang recruitment in HVB homes shall not be an option, and the care that we will probably, despite everything, still need to provide in one way or another in the future shall be safe and secure.
In this debate, I have tried to describe how we are now making a shift towards early preventive work in social care, but also that we are now taking completely different measures to redirect the authorities that have the task of working with this. Ivo is, of course, extremely important. One now gets the tools and resources to redirect the work to become the supervisory authority we need.
We also steer so that secrecy shall work in such a way that the information that one must have, one shall also receive it in order to be able to secure care for our most vulnerable children.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.