Response to interpellation 2024/25:583 on the closure of the service office in Kungälv
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The government stands by the position that certain service offices shall be phased out due to reduced appropriations and a need for streamlining 1. KD argues that the operation is important for personal service and that offices should exist throughout the country 1. KD emphasizes that the authority makes decisions on decommissioning based on cost, geographical location, and number of visits 2. KD denies that lease contracts are the only decisive factor and emphasizes mobile solutions 3 4. S argues that the closure in Kungälv is unfortunate as it is not a strategic thought but depends on lease contracts 5. S considers that the service offices are important for complex matters that require human contact 6. S criticizes that the state does not listen to the municipality's offers of cooperation 7.
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 Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Kenneth G Forslund has, against the background of a saving regarding the State Service Centers' appropriation, asked me if I and the government are prepared to reconsider the decision on the economic cut and thereby stop the wave of closures for the service centers.
The Government still considers the service centers to be an important activity for providing personal service from state authorities. Service centers shall continue to exist throughout the country to meet individuals' needs for local state service within a reasonable distance. At the same time, the activity needs to be streamlined, and some offices will be phased out as a result of reduced appropriations. The Government stands by that assessment.
At the same time, there will continue to be a large number of service offices throughout the entire country, even though the travel route to the nearest permanent office will become longer for some individuals and companies.
The Government has tasked Statens servicecenter with developing a plan for a new organization of the service office network. I have full confidence in Statens servicecenter's handling of the assignment and the agency's assessment of which offices may be subject to decommissioning based on the frameworks and input values that have been provided.
Kenneth G Forslund (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! It was clear and distinct: The ambition of the government is not to change the policy. But I still hope that I will be able to get the Minister to have some other thoughts during this debate and I shall provide some arguments for that.
Yesterday the news came: The service office in Kungälv is to be closed. One must be careful with strong expressions; there is always a risk that one devalues them. But I must nevertheless admit that we are a bit in shock in Kungälv right now.
Kungälv is a municipality just north of Gothenburg where companies, people, and business chains are moving. But the state is now going to move its service office away from there. In the decision, it is referred to that there are service offices nearby. One can travel to, for example, Gothenburg – it takes 20–25 minutes, it is pointed out. This is correct if one lives at Ytterby station. But no one lives at Ytterby station. Those who live closest live a few hundred meters away. Most Kungälv residents have significantly further to Ytterby station to be able to take the train into Gothenburg. I would say that those who live furthest away probably have at least 20–25 minutes just to get to the station.
What is also envisioned is that the residents of Kungälv are to travel to the service center in Nordstan in Gothenburg, which is to be closed next year. Where is one then supposed to go?
This is not quite reasonable. We received very suddenly just about a month ago – this has gone fast – information that one even had these thoughts. It turned out then that what it is about at the bottom line when it comes to survival or not for the service office in Kungälv is that it has been discovered that the lease agreement is soon expiring. That is the important factor – not a strategic thought about where it is good to have these operations so that we have an even distribution across the country, reach people and so on. Instead, it is about very narrow economic decisions.
I think this is unfortunate, and I wonder if the Minister really thinks that it is a reasonable basis for where we have service offices. We can disagree on how many we should have, how often and how long they should be open and so on. But is it really reasonable that the distribution, where they are located, is based on who happened to have the shortest time left on the lease? That is my question to the Minister.
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! Kenneth G Forslund knows very well that I do not stand and negotiate the budget with the opposition in the speaker's chair. This is something we do within the government. Should Statens servicecenter be presented with new financial frameworks, this would be presented in the ordinary budget work. The cards are laid. We have the budget we have for 2025, and I cannot answer anything else regarding that. Should other financial frameworks be given, this would be announced at another occasion.
This is part of the government's priorities for the state budget, where we have made a reduction in appropriations for Statens servicecenter. We have seen, not least in the report that came from Riksrevisionen, that there is room for efficiencies. We have seen that the costs for each visit, that is, the cost per capita, have increased. The number of visits has not quite increased at a rate that corresponds to the development regarding the number of offices. We have therefore seen that there is room for a reduction, which will lead to some offices needing to be closed. According to the agency itself, it is expected that 35 offices will need to be closed over the next three years. This means that we will come down to the same number of offices as we had in 2019, just to put this in perspective.
It is not the government that decides which 35 offices are to be closed, but it is something that the agency makes decisions on. This shall be done based on three principles. Costs are one such principle, but geographical location and distances, as well as the office's number of visitors, are other values that shall play a role. It is therefore several factors that play a role when the agency decides which offices are to be closed. Exactly what trade-offs have been made when it concerns just Kungälv, I cannot answer now. But these are the three principles that are and shall be guiding for the agency.
Kenneth G Forslund (S)
Madam Speaker! Now, I would not have asked the question about the budget, so we had not quite reached the budget negotiations yet. But I understand that the Minister understood where it was heading. I shall return to this shortly.
This is an office that has just over 6,000 visitors and where just over 7,000 cases are handled by four different agencies that are present. Nearly half of these visits concern tax activities and the Swedish Tax Agency's matters.
I am very much in favor of digitalization and think it is good in many ways. I like that Sweden is highly digitized. Early this morning, I booked a haircut for next week via a digital interface – it works perfectly. But when I called last week and tried to get through the answering machine at Skatteverket, which is voice-controlled, it was not so easy.
Quite a few people are irritated by endless automated voice menus and hopeless chatbots. There are matters that are not simple routine matters, where one wants a human contact and to be able to meet someone you can look in the eye, discuss things with, and actually receive professional help from. One might not even know exactly where to turn. In those cases, the digital tools are not so easy. They work well for routine matters. Therefore, service centers are important.
I am quite worried for, for example, companies in Kungälv, which will now have significantly longer distances to contacts with Skatteverket. The State Service Center is not solely an activity for those who are old, those who are not so IT-savvy, or those who are not so good at Swedish. It is often about matters that are not simple and routine.
Then the Minister refers to the fact that the government cannot govern the placement of the offices. No, that is quite correct, because the government has relinquished that possibility in this case. There was previously a government decision that governed the placement, but this government has repealed it. One has, therefore, most deliberately relinquished that possibility.
The question remains nevertheless: Is it reasonable that it is the length of the lease agreement that determines the structure of where we have service offices in the country?
Now I come to the economic issue. I am not going to budget-negotiate with the Minister, but I will nevertheless offer a tip here at the eleventh hour. I understand that most of it is naturally already settled regarding what is to be presented on Tuesday. But there is actually an opportunity for the government to come back in the year-end budget on Tuesday and allocate more money so that we can have more service offices than what we are heading towards right now.
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! That the budget issue would be raised was not particularly unexpected, as it was included in the interpellation. It was easy to guess that it would also be raised in one of the speeches. Therefore, I anticipated the events slightly.
Again: If the economic conditions for Statens servicecenter are to be changed, it will be announced in an orderly manner in the budget processes that exist. The length of the lease contracts shall not be solely decisive for the office network. That is not what has been decided. Just as I said in my previous post, there are three principles that are based on. It is geographical distribution, the number of visits – i.e., the office's number of visits – and the economy that shall play a role. It is a balancing act that shall be made.
I cannot [provide] the details of the decision regarding Kungälv specifically. One must ask the authority about that. But based on the three principles I mentioned, the office network shall be dimensioned moving forward. It is also clear that the economy plays a role in this. It must always do so.
This is not the first time I have debated this issue, but I have debated it many times in the Riksdag. There will be more interpellation debates ahead as well. I think there are often some overtones, because it sometimes sounds in the interpellations as if we are phasing out Statens servicecenter. We are not doing that. We will reduce the number of offices. We will go down to the same level as we were at in 2019. But I think Sweden was also a fairly well-functioning country in 2019. One could reach state services even then.
Some will have longer distances to physical offices. We shall not sugarcoat that, but that is how it is. At the same time, we must know that even with today's office network, there are those who have much longer distances to an office than what will be available in the future in, for example, Kungälv. Obviously, they can receive help from state agencies even in those parts of the country. It will therefore not be impossible to reach the state physically even after these changes. It is important to emphasize that.
Even though we acknowledge that the number of offices is decreasing, I do not think we should paint a picture of the state withdrawing completely and that one will not be able to get help. One will still be able to get help even after this change.
Kenneth G Forslund (S)
Madam Speaker! No, it is naturally not a total decommissioning we are talking about. But we can state that we differ here, as the Prime Minister usually says, on how fine-meshed the network of service offices should be. One will naturally be interested in studying the total number of visitors to the collective service offices and how many cases the offices have managed to handle. It will naturally be interesting to see if 35 fewer service offices can handle as many cases as before or if it is such that the bottom line is less service. We will certainly have reason to return to this further ahead.
Kungälv is, as has been said, a municipality where people, companies, and business activities move. But now the service center is moving away from there. Here, the municipality has actually tried to be very constructive. They have been very far-reaching in their offers. With quite a bit of own experience of Kungälv politics, I would like to say that the municipality here has probably gone further than I have seen them do at any time before. They have offered premises and staff, and they have also tried to sow the idea of developing a new, mobile concept and wanted to cooperate on it. But no, that is what Statens servicecenter has chosen not to listen to.
In Erik Slottner's presentation on the government's website, I read: "My mission is to work for good and functioning cooperation between municipalities, regions and the state so that all levels can carry out their important welfare mandates in the best possible way." It is a very good ambition, I must say. There is nothing wrong with it. But how is the ambition fulfilled when one does not even want to discuss this, as I must say, very generous offer that Kungälv Municipality, in broad political agreement, including Slottner's own party comrades, stands behind?
Statsrådet Erik Slottner (KD)
Madam Speaker! First and foremost, I should say that we have increased the possibility for a larger appropriation saving for the agency – I forgot to say this in my previous contribution – precisely to avoid it being the length of the office lease contracts that determines which offices are closed. This we could, therefore, counteract by increasing the appropriation saving.
It was good that Kenneth G Forslund mentioned mobile concepts. I should, of course, in my two previous posts, have mentioned that the agency has a mandate to work more with mobile and flexible office solutions. One is therefore not locked into only fixed offices, because even with today's office network – with 148 fixed offices around the country – there are those who have significantly longer distances to a fixed office than what will be the case in Kungälv after the office there is closed. In that case, it is very good that one works with mobile offices and flexible solutions.
I am immensely grateful to the municipalities that are now trying to find solutions and are coming forward with offers of various kinds where the municipality can take increased responsibility. I have previously said that I think it is good when municipal citizen centers can be co-located with Statens servicecenter. It is also not anything that says that the individual agencies – there are four agencies – could not be physically present. But then those agencies must make those decisions. I have no further information on this here and now. I know that other municipalities are also now trying to find solutions on how one could cooperate regarding premises and other things to maintain a state presence.
The state shall be represented throughout Sweden. Now we are expanding the state to a great extent by significantly increasing, among other things, the judiciary and the defense. The state will be more present around the country even after this change.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.