Response to interpellation 2025/26:305 on CSN's payment problems
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned CSN's delays in payments of student aid. L argued that the delays were due to technical factors, not a lack of resources, and that the government has allocated 160 million kronor for the transition student support 1 2 3 4. L emphasized that the agency has full confidence and that consequence analyses are conducted regularly 3 4. S claimed, however, that the agency is underfunded and that the government has not listened to CSN's needs or the opposition 5 6. S argued that the delays are a consequence of resources being reprioritized and that the government has been reactive rather than proactive 6 7. S emphasized that payment delays create a private economic crisis for students 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Niklas Sigvardsson has asked me how I am acting to ensure that more payments are not delayed in the coming months. He has also asked me whether I and the government have conducted any impact assessment of the funding of the agency's administrative grants and what the analysis, if so, has shown.
The Central Swedish Student Aid Board, CSN, has the task of administering student aid and other support to individuals. It is CSN that is responsible for paying out student aid to the students.
On two occasions during the last few months, CSN has not been able to pay out student aid to some students on time. The agency quickly issued information to those affected through its various channels, and the student aid could be paid out to all concerned a couple of days later. It is of course regrettable that it is precisely students who have been affected by such delays.
The Ministry of Education has been in close contact with CSN regarding the delays and will also continue to have a close dialogue with the agency regarding the agency's ability to continue to pay out student support on time in the future.
CSN also has, according to its regulatory letter, a mandate to account for how the authority has managed and developed its work with information and cybersecurity, including the organization's own preparedness and ability to handle incidents, as well as how the authority plans to meet future needs within the area of information and cybersecurity.
Questions concerning the agency's funding are discussed continuously and are handled in the usual budget process. It is important to emphasize that the government during the mandate period has added 160 million kronor to the agency in addition to the funds that were initially calculated for the transition study support.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
As the minister said, the background to this interpellation is the serious incidents that occurred on two occasions, in November and in January, when some students did not have their student grants paid out in time.
For many, student loans from CSN are not just a supplement but the very basis for livelihood and a prerequisite for being able to pay rent, food, and course literature. When payments are missing, it is not an administrative detail but a private economic crisis for a great number of people. In that case, delays – especially over a whole weekend in January, which is the year's poorest month – may mean that one needs to seek help from friends or relatives to manage everyday life.
The Minister described that the authority informed quickly and that the money was paid out a few days later. That is positive, but the question remains how the government and the Minister ensure that this does not happen again. How can we be confident that the authority has the resources and the robustness required to handle this in the long term?
We Social Democrats have in the majority of budgets since the change of government prioritized higher appropriations for CSN's operations than the government. We have done that because we have, both in budget messages and in budget forecasts, seen warning signals from the agency that there are problems and a need for reinforcements in order to manage both the administration of the transition study support, which has been the major discussion during the mandate period, and the agency's other operations.
When this happens, one must ask whether the resources have been sufficient to meet this collective burden. That question can partly be seen as rhetorical – the resources have not been sufficient, Mr. Speaker.
It has been reported of longer queues to the authority. It has been more difficult for students to get hold of the authority, especially for students who have not studied with transition study support.
This has been prioritized by the government, which has been completely right. It is a new system that we have collectively needed to work on for it to achieve the effect that exists. The government has, however, not listened to the opposition or to student organizations in this issue. News segments and news articles have been made from student cities and about students all around the country. Students have found it harder than it should be and harder than it needs to be.
I think this is a pity, because I believe that the Minister and I agree here, namely that everyone who applies for student aid should receive notice regarding the grants in time and also be able to count on the money being paid out. It is crucial for the legitimacy of student aid that the reliability is good. Otherwise, the student aid is neither fair nor reliable.
The question is, after all, about justice and trust in the state and in us as decision-makers, and therefore I believe that more answers were needed than those the minister gave. A clear plan was needed, and it needs to be stated more clearly what measures the minister has taken to ensure that this does not happen again in a week's time when the funds for February are to be paid out, or during the rest of the months of the year. Therefore, I ask the minister: How has the minister acted and will act to ensure that the payments are not delayed in the coming months?
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! The questions concern a number of different matters. Regarding the problems with the payments, the Ministry of Education has, of course, had a dialogue with CSN, and the agency has stated that they are working to ensure that this does not happen again. There is nothing to indicate that a lack of resources for CSN has led to these problems. In November, there was an error in a payment file sent to the bank, and now in January, a problem arose during an automatic run due to an incorrect date. It therefore had nothing to do with resources.
When the transition study support was introduced, CSN was obviously subjected to a much greater workload than it had previously. Niklas Sigvardsson talks about delays, backlogs and so on. This has been progressively rectified, and I experience that these problems are not as extensive today. The authority has worked very hard to rectify this.
It is, however, important to say that the reform was slightly underfunded from the beginning, and therefore 160 million has been added. This, however, has nothing to do with the problems that arose with the payments, as that is a different issue. But it is obviously important that the authority receives resources so that it can fulfill its mission, and my assessment is that it truly is doing so today.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the continued answers.
Let me nevertheless be clear that we Social Democrats do not quite share the view that the authority CSN has the resources required, nor has it had them during recent years.
In a number of different debates, especially in interpellation debates in the chamber with different ministers responsible for this issue, we have raised that CSN, via a regulatory letter, has received the request to reprioritize resources from the rest of the student support system to the transition student support. Therefore, these issues are somehow connected. I do not expect the minister to personally run payroll files and payment files, but the government does steer the realm and is responsible for ensuring that the agency has the resources required to fulfill its mandate.
Therefore, the question is linked to the rest of the debate held during the mandate period regarding whether the agency has the resources required to fulfill its mission, and here we have slightly different views. We Social Democrats have prioritized differently and listened more to CSN when it comes to the agency's budget requests and the public documents they have delivered to the government in the usual budget process.
We Social Democrats still feel some concern, but we are also interested in whether the Minister continues the work of reviewing what it looks like moving forward, given the payment problems in both November and January and the agency's concern about how to fulfill the mandate for the transition study support in the future, since they did not receive the funds they requested for 2026 and also do not receive them in the long-term plan for the budget years 2027 and 2028.
These questions are, as said, connected. The agency has for several years experienced being underfunded and is under great pressure because the transition study support is more popular and perhaps more difficult to navigate than we in the chamber suspected when we made a virtually unanimous decision to implement this reform. The government needs to ensure that the agency CSN has the resources required, and the consequence analyses that are needed must be carried out so that the agency can fulfill its mandate.
The question of the payments therefore points to how the government works with consequence analyses and how the government and the minister work to follow up and ensure that the agency actually has the resources required.
It is not acceptable that students at colleges, universities, and komvux should feel anxiety over whether the payments will arrive on time or not. Student support is a very important part of the social contract when it comes to studies: students receive money from the state in the form of grants and loans, and the state, in turn, sets requirements on study results and repayment.
The core of my criticism is that the government has not taken sufficient account of the fact that CSN needs the resources the agency has requested and that the government has chosen not to listen to this. Therefore, I continue to ask the minister: What additional measures will the minister take? What do the consequence analyses look like ahead of the budget work next year so that the agency receives the resources that are required?
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I have full confidence in CSN and that they carry out their assignment according to the regulatory letters and within the budget they have been given, and I think it is important to emphasize that there is nothing to indicate that the problems they had on the two occasions were due to a lack of resources.
But just as Niklas Sigvardsson says, the reform for the transition study support became more costly, and therefore more resources have also been added.
It is not just about this, however, but also about, for example, the regulatory simplifications that the authority has worked hard to implement in order to simplify and speed up the process.
Is a consequence analysis performed? Yes, before every budget process, this is done routinely for all agencies in Sweden, and depending on what mandates they have, an assessment is then made of how much money the agencies should receive.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! This debate highlights the extremely important fact that students, regardless of form of study, should be able to rely on the state paying out money on time. Regardless of whether it is a direct consequence of the government choosing not to give CSN the resources the agency has requested during this mandate period, the students have not received the payments on time; this is one of all the signals from CSN and the student support system regarding delayed payments on two occasions. It has also been difficult for students to contact CSN because the agency has made reprioritizations in its operations to fulfill its mandate. When one adds up all these different factors, the payments nevertheless constitute a certain part of the problem.
I believe that the Minister and the Government cannot clearly explain to the Chamber and the voters how this looks, how it is to be managed in the future, why CSN has not received increased resources, and why personnel resources have been moved between departments. There has been a hard pressure between the student aids when it comes to how it is to be managed in the future.
In my opinion, we have had this debate far too many times during this mandate period, and the government has been reactive rather than proactive.
When this question is debated, we must all think beyond the systemic perspective and instead think about the individuals who are affected, whether it is about long processing times to get answers to questions or students who do not receive their money on time, such as Johannes, Theodor, and Rosie. Therefore, I believe that these issues are of the utmost importance, so that more people do not have to wait to have their money paid out. After all, it is about trust and confidence that the state can manage to pay out money on time.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I completely share Niklas Sigvardsson's view on the authority's responsibility versus individual students. It is incredibly important that students receive their loans and grants on time because many students often have it quite tight from the start. I believe we all agree on this, but in this case, the problems the authority has had on two occasions have not been due to a lack of resources but due to technical factors.
It is clear that it is incredibly important that the authority now sees what can be done so that it does not happen again. It is important that all authorities in Sweden have a preparedness for, for example, cyberattacks and so on. That also applies to CSN, just like other authorities.
The reform of the transition study support became more expensive than the parties in the Riksdag thought when the decisions were made. To compensate for this, the agency has been allocated 160 million kronor. We now see that these resources, combined with regulatory simplifications, have led to significantly shorter processing times.
I am, of course, following this issue so that the problems are not repeated.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.