Response to interpellation 2024/25:616 on the municipalities' supervisory responsibility and granting of permits
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 municipalities' supervisory responsibility and the granting of permits. L argues that the shared supervisory responsibility between Skolinspektionen and the municipalities is a balanced path where advantages regarding equality are weighed against disadvantages such as a heavily dimensioned state bureaucracy 1. L emphasizes that the municipalities have an important mission and that support material is available 2. L argues that nationalization is not necessarily worth the tax money and that the government is analyzing the Riksrevisionen's recommendations to increase equality 2 3. L is not entirely sure that it is the right way to go to let Skolinspektionen receive the entire assignment 4. L wants to strengthen equality in Swedish preschool and school in general 4. S argues that the state support is insufficient and that Skolinspektionens supervision has been almost non-existent 5. S believes that too little is being done and calls for doing it over and doing it right 6.
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 Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! Rose-Marie Carlsson has asked me how I have ensured that the current order, where the School Inspectorate has oversight of the municipal preschools and pedagogical care and the municipalities have oversight of the equivalent in the independent operations, is the best.
All children and students shall be given a good start in life. Conducting educational activities within the school system in Sweden means that one manages the society's trust for that mission. It follows from the Education Act that education within the school system shall be equitable and maintain good quality within every school form and within the after-school center regardless of where in the country it is organized. A well-functioning supervision can be an important part in ensuring that the education is equitable and that it maintains good quality. There are also many other important factors that are significant for an equitable quality. The Government has, for example, appointed a special investigator who, among other things, has the mandate to submit proposals with the aim that all preschools in Sweden shall be given equitable conditions to offer children an education of good quality (dir. 2024:113).
Regarding pedagogical care, new provisions were introduced in the Education Act on 1 January 2023, which entail clearer and expanded requirements for the operations. The municipality shall also, upon application, examine whether an individual should be approved as a head of an organization. After the approval, the municipality shall exercise supervision to ensure that the requirements are continuously met. If the individual no longer meets the conditions for an approval, it may be revoked.
The Government has, as Rose-Marie Carlsson very rightly points out, in the budget bill for 2025 considered the pros and cons of the shared supervisory responsibility between Skolinspektionen and the municipalities. There it is indeed stated that one advantage of moving the responsibility for the supervision of all preschools, after-school centers, and pedagogical care to one and the same authority would be that the equivalence in the review would be strengthened. But at the same time, the Government notes that Skolinspektionen's ongoing supervision of municipal preschools, after-school centers, and other pedagogical activities is today primarily exercised at the principal level, not at the operational level. This can be compared to the fact that Skolinspektionen has supervision over how the municipalities fulfill their supervisory responsibility over the individual principals for these activities.
The Government further notes that if the Swedish Schools Inspectorate were to take over the supervision and furthermore exercise it at both the head of school level and the unit level, the authority's supervisory responsibility would cover an additional approximately 3,200 units with a private head of school. This would require a completely different dimensioning and organization of the authority.
The municipalities' supervision can currently include annual or regularly recurring inspections of all operations, in contrast to the School Inspectorate's, which takes its starting point in, among other things, a needs analysis, which means that the supervision is carried out at those operations where the need for supervision is judged to be greatest. For the School Inspectorate to be able to make accurate selections of objects for review, access to, among other things, clear indicators is further required, which does not exist for the operations concerned in the same way as for, for example, primary and upper secondary school. Furthermore, there are difficulties for the School Inspectorate to achieve an equivalent coverage rate among the operations concerned.
The government has thus considered the advantages and disadvantages, and against the background of these considerations, no change to the supervisory responsibility for individual preschools, after-school centers, and pedagogical care is planned at the current time.
Rose-Marie Carlsson (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the answer!
We have previously debated the supervision of preschools, and then based on Skolinspektionen's supervision of how the municipalities carry out their mandate.
The Riksdag issued a directive to the government to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of Skolinspektionen also having supervision over the independent activities. Just as the minister said, the government accounts in this year's budget bill for how they have handled this. But most of what is listed there we already knew. There was no need for any special investigation for that. So, it was nothing unusual. But what one wonders is: What does SKR think? What does Skolinspektionen think? What do the different main owners think about the supervision responsibility? Where should it lie? Why has this not been sent out for consultation?
In the previous debate we had, the minister replied that the minister expected both the municipalities and the Skolinspektionen to fulfill their supervisory responsibility, which is a self-evident matter. But the conditions for this are very different.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has audited – there are thus nine years between the audits – in 2016 and 2025 how the municipalities exercise their supervision over the independent activities. We also know that the supervision has become more complicated. Ownership and management reviews have been added, and there are changed and more complicated ownership structures. Profit-driven preschools are becoming increasingly common. And in many cases, it can be difficult to know who the main owner is.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is currently conducting a quality review of the municipalities' work with ownership and management reviews. It has also been supplemented with a democracy mandate. If I remember correctly, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate received 15 million for this mandate. But when it comes to the municipalities' supervisory responsibility, which has become more difficult and more complicated, no extra reinforcement has been received – not as far as I know in any case.
In different contexts, the competence and experience of the smaller municipalities have been highlighted. It is not just about law. One must also have knowledge of school law, economics, and pedagogy.
The answer given was: If the individual no longer fulfills the requirements for an approval, it may be revoked. But that is a truth with a qualification. It takes a lot to get there, and it is often a long process before one reaches that point. The principal, in fact, always has the opportunity to rectify it.
As a rule, there must be an immediate danger to the children's lives and health. As recently as a few weeks ago, one could read about a standalone preschool that had to close urgently due to extensive safety deficiencies for the children, but which reopened after a few days because those specific deficiencies had then been rectified.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate's review 2025 shows that only a few of the municipalities use the school act's intervention in cases of deficiencies. It is common to only provide recommendations. And the deficiencies are not followed up in an optimal way, so the deficiencies remain the next time an inspection is conducted.
In the previous debate, which we had just over a year ago, the minister answered that the Swedish Schools Inspectorate has support material intended to facilitate the municipalities in exercising their supervisory responsibility. What the Swedish Schools Inspectorate writes in its report can be interpreted as that the municipalities do not know where they can find the support, or else they are very unclear.
My question is: What does the Minister intend to do to increase state support to the preschools and strengthen the municipalities, so that they can fulfill their supervisory mandate?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! It is an incredibly important mission that the municipalities have. I myself have great experience with this – how to structure the inspection of independent preschools so that the individual children are in focus and not the individual operation.
It is important that the municipalities take this seriously. As a help to the municipalities in this work, there is now support material on the Skolinspektionen's website. It concerns what one should consider as a municipality when developing this activity, so that it functions in a good way.
But I share the interpellator's fears, at least in parts of this. It looks very different in Sweden. It is not only different how one views supervision and when one grants permits to independent operations. There are also very large differences between the municipalities when it comes to how they view their preschool activities overall. That is why we have commissioned an inquiry regarding this. It concerns, for example, the size of the children's groups, which we know vary very much. It also varies very much how much money one invests in one's preschool. But it is important that one takes this supervision responsibility very seriously.
The National Audit Office has also submitted a report – a few weeks ago. They have reviewed this and argue that there are indeed areas for improvement. We are looking at the various proposals. But one must also be aware, as I said in my response, that if one is to nationalize the supervisory activities, one must build up a very large state bureaucracy for it. It is not certain that it is worth the tax funds, so to speak, tax funds that instead could be allocated to preschool activities and benefit all our children.
Rose-Marie Carlsson (S)
Madam Speaker! I partly share the Minister's view. But this debate actually has two parallel tracks, partly the supervision, and partly what the question originally concerned, that is, whether an investigation has been conducted or not. On this point, we differ. We are talking about supervision, but it is also about granting permission to start an individual business.
As the Minister says, it is not only the School Inspectorate that has reviewed the supervisory responsibility; the National Audit Office has also done so from its area of responsibility. I previously gave examples of what the School Inspectorate has seen during its review. In the National Audit Office's report *Equality in preschool – the state's support, follow-up and supervision*, which was published not so long ago, it is written in the presentation that "the review shows that preschool has been given little room in the work of the government and the school authorities. Skolverket's support and follow-up have been deficient and the School Inspectorate's review and control of preschool has been almost non-existent in recent years." As was said, it is not regular that this supervision is carried out.
Furthermore, it can be read: ”The review further shows that Skolinspektionen hardly conducted any supervision or quality review of the preschool during the last five years. That the authority is primarily to conduct supervision at the head of institution level means that they rarely conduct site visits, which leads to limitations in what the supervision can cover. For example, the preschools' work with special support is not covered by Skolinspektionens supervision.”
The speaker continues: "One way to increase uniformity and legal certainty in the supervision of preschools is to task Skolinspektionen with auditing the municipal preschool at the operational level, while the state guidance to the municipalities' supervision of independent preschools is increased. Another solution is to move the entire responsibility for supervision to Skolinspektionen."
Dagens Samhälle has also written about this: "The state supervision of preschools is too weak. The Skolinspektionen's review has been almost non-existent in recent years and therefore the system needs to be redesigned, according to Riksrevisionen."
Furthermore, one can read: ”The National Audit Office also assesses that the state support for preschools is insufficient, and that the National Agency for Education therefore needs to strengthen the support.”
The Minister's answer regarding the so-called investigation is based on the number of units the assignment will be expanded with and not on a consultation round where comments are received. It is not certain that anything else will be reached – I have not said that it should lie there – but it is about whether an investigation has been conducted or not.
Therefore, my question is: Is it not time to truly investigate the advantages and disadvantages?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! I believe it is quite easy to see, not least from the National Audit Office's report, what the advantages and disadvantages are. If one nationalizes this entire operation, one likely gets greater equality. In the other scale, however, lies the fact that one must build up a very large bureaucracy for this, and it is not certain that it is worth it.
We are now analyzing the recommendations coming from the Swedish National Audit Office. On one hand, we must ensure that we achieve greater equivalence in Swedish preschools – and this applies regardless of whether they are municipal or independent; in some places, for example, we have very large children's groups – on the other hand, we must ensure that the independent operations we have in preschool are of good quality. In this regard, the municipalities' supervision naturally plays a very important role.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has also made efforts to improve and help the municipalities in this role, partly through the support material that exists, and partly through the expanded mandate that the government has given, which also includes financial auditing. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate shall also produce support material regarding the municipalities' supervision of preschools with confessional elements and also the municipalities' supervision of pedagogical care, what is commonly called childminders.
So, a lot is being done in this area. The question, of course, is whether it is enough.
Rose-Marie Carlsson (S)
Madam Speaker! My answer to the Minister's question is: No, it is not being done sufficiently. Significantly more can be done. However, I will not take up much more time here, because one can talk a great deal about it. We are soon facing a new parliamentary year, and then we will discuss and debate preschool very much.
While I am remembering it, I would like to take the opportunity to wish the minister a pleasant summer!
I want to conclude with a summary from Dagens Samhälle: ”That the Swedish Schools Inspectorate's supervision has been so weak is because the municipalities are responsible for the direct supervision at the preschools, while the Swedish Schools Inspectorate is to ensure that the heads of institutions do their jobs. But the setup works poorly since the municipalities have such different conditions, the National Audit Office assesses. One solution could be to move the entire supervision responsibility to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, according to the National Audit Office's press release.”
In conclusion, I can say that in the end, and just as the minister said, it is about children's right to education and that we should have an equal preschool for all children, regardless of which preschool they attend. I will therefore not conclude with a question but with an appeal: Do it over and do it right!
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Rose-Marie Carlsson, for this interesting interpellation debate!
Of course, one must do the right thing. But one must also know what is in the different scales before deciding what is the right path to take. I am not entirely sure that the right path to take is for Skolinspektionen to receive this entire assignment. I am also not sure that Sveriges kommuner would think it would be a good idea in all cases.
However, we must strengthen the equality in Swedish preschool and school in general, regardless of whether they are independent or municipal operations. For example, we have appointed an inquiry, among other things, on regulating the size of children's groups. We have also tasked the School Inspectorate to, for example, produce support materials in order to help the municipalities in their very important assignments.
I also wish you a pleasant summer!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.