Response to interpellation 2025/26:467 on the closure of the Swedish Tax Agency's office in Vetlanda
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M argues that the authorities themselves decide on their organization and where offices should be located based on established goals 1. M emphasizes that state presence and service are important to simplify things for people and maintain legitimacy 1. M points out that there is state service in Vetlanda via Statens servicecenter 2 and argues that the state is growing in other areas, such as prisons and defense 2. 3 S considers that the government does not take responsibility for the whole and that state jobs are being centralized from smaller towns 3. S argues that the government should give authorities a mandate to safeguard state presence 3 and emphasizes that the closure in Vetlanda harms the municipality's base and labor market 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.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! Johanna Haraldsson has asked me if I am prepared to work to ensure that the decision to close the Skatteverket office in Vetlanda is reconsidered and if I intend to work to ensure that Skatteverket does not reduce the number of offices in the country.
The government's administrative policy is based on the authorities themselves – based on goals established by the Riksdag and the government – deciding to a large extent how the operations should best be organized. This means that it is the authority's management that decides how the organization should be designed and where offices should be located. At the same time, it is important that our authorities are located in several places in Sweden.
The presence and service of authorities is important to simplify things for people across the country. It also maintains the legitimacy and trust of the public administration. At the same time, digitalization and other changes in the world around us place demands on the Swedish Tax Agency to adapt its operations. According to its instructions, the Swedish Tax Agency shall conduct operations at the locations justified by its tasks. The Swedish Tax Agency has an extensive presence from Malmö in the south to Kiruna in the north. In addition, the Statens servicecenter offers local state service on behalf of the Swedish Tax Agency at service offices around the country, including in Vetlanda.
Johanna Haraldsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I must begin by stating that the answer to my two questions to the Minister appears to be no. No, the Minister will not act to ensure that the decision to close the Skatteverket office in Vetlanda is reconsidered. No, she will also not act to ensure that Skatteverket does not continue to close offices around the country. If I have misunderstood the Finance Minister's answer, she is more than welcome to correct me in her upcoming remarks.
Mr. Speaker! The news that the Swedish Tax Agency wants to close its office in Vetlanda has created concern both among employees and in the municipality. Municipal politicians from both the government and the opposition have written op-eds and sent an open letter to the agency's leadership. They have demanded consultation, and they have visited the workplace and spoken with the employees. The employees, in turn, have sent a letter to the Minister for Finance. The issue has been highlighted in several articles in the local newspaper and in regional media.
That 15 state jobs are disappearing from a smaller town is a big deal. For the employees, it means that they must start commuting up to three or four hours every day if they want to keep their jobs. An obvious risk is that people will eventually choose to move after the jobs when the workplaces are concentrated in larger cities. Few can manage to commute several hours a day year after year.
It has consequences for Vetlanda municipality. If families leave the municipality, the basis for schools, trade, and community life is affected. Competence and tax revenues disappear. At the same time, the image is reinforced that development and qualified jobs should primarily be found in larger cities.
State jobs are important for many smaller towns. They broaden the labor market and make it more stable, even when the economy turns. They create opportunities for people with different educational backgrounds and experience to live and build their lives even in smaller towns.
Mr. Speaker! The Minister for Finance refers to the fact that the authority itself is responsible for its organization. I do not question the authorities' responsibility to conduct efficient operations. But the employees at Skatteverket in Vetlanda, in the correspondence that both I and the Minister for Finance have received, have clearly shown that what the authority puts forward as reasons for closing the office does not quite hold up all the way.
The employees describe how the office has had stable operations, high competence, and low staff turnover for a long period. They highlight that they have had good opportunities to recruit and that there has been interest in applying for the positions that have been advertised. They point out that the premises costs are lower, which they usually are in smaller locations. They also describe that the office previously had more employees and that they could actually have the capacity to grow further.
What perhaps is the most important thing is that the operations are conducted largely digitally. Within the Swedish Tax Agency, people work in digital teams and collaborate across the entire country. The operations are therefore not dependent on concentrating them in a few offices or in larger cities in order to function effectively.
So, it is not about an office that lacks either competence or functioning operations. On the contrary, the state now risks losing experienced staff. It is difficult to see how that would enhance the efficiency of the agency.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. ”The presence and service of authorities is important to simplify things for people throughout the country,” says the Minister. That is exactly what it is about, and then authorities need to be decentralized around the country, in large and small towns, in smaller and larger cities, so that we get distribution throughout the country. Just as my colleague Johanna Haraldsson stated in her contribution, it is about spreading expertise and ensuring that there is service on site.
Much can be done digitally or in other ways, but there are quite a few people who need to visit the authority as a physical person and meet a caseworker to sit down and have their matters handled. That there are offices in different locations and in smaller towns is extremely important for the whole country to live. The Minister emphasizes precisely that this is important. If those words mean anything and the Minister wants to act in that direction, more action is also needed, so that this is established in different ways.
Now, offices have been closed in Simrishamn and Enköping as well, and Vetlanda is next in line. Will more offices be closed, or can we expect that it will not happen? I think it is reasonable for the Minister to answer that. Can she state that this is not a trend and that there is no intent or strategy behind the closures? If the Minister wants the whole country to live, I believe she should be able to answer that no more offices will be closed than what has been announced so far. It is an answer that is reasonable to receive from the Minister today.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the interpellation. I intend to answer very briefly and quite directly to the point. I know that there are wise Social Democrats here in the chamber. I know that they know that a minister does not go in and decide exactly where the 10,500 employees of the Swedish Tax Agency shall work and which offices they shall be at. But it is an election year, and that can be noticed in this type of reasoning.
It is very important that one can live and work in the entire country. I really want to emphasize that for the members. It is naturally also important that there is state service. That exists in Vetlanda in the form of Statens servicecenter, and that is an important point. I understand very well that the 15 affected employees are upset and worried about this announcement from the management of Skatteverket. I do not doubt that. But what is A and O for the citizens in Vetlanda is that one will still have an accessible service center.
So, I am not going to interfere in exactly where the Swedish Tax Agency's employees should work. Everyone will probably be happy that there are no red, blue, or green governments micro-managing this. What we must ensure we keep our eyes on is that there is a state presence and service throughout the entire country.
Things and events happen. Changes occur. Skatteverket has in many ways been fantastic in terms of digitalization, which has made things easier for many. We can have contact via the internet or call. But there are also people who need to meet people, and there should be an opportunity to do that somewhere in the local area, even if not every municipality in Sweden will be able to have a service center or a Skatteverket office.
Fundamentally, Sweden is fantastic, and we are developing. Regarding the speech on changed state presence, much else is happening. Many new state jobs are now emerging all over Sweden and also in other areas. For example, prisons are being built, and the defense is expanding very much in the inland of Norrland or in southern Sweden. All over Sweden, new state employment opportunities are emerging, while the investments I mentioned earlier are creating jobs.
Summa summarum: Minister, regardless of whether it is I or someone else who has my job moving forward, I shall not go in and dictate exactly where the staff in Vetlanda should be in the future. I understand the upset. But I also understand that the Swedish Tax Agency has several different things to take into account in the decision.
Johanna Haraldsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! The Finance Minister's response here shows that she does not want to take responsibility for the whole. She says that the issue is important. She says in her opening remarks that legitimacy and trust play a role. But when layoffs now occur, government representatives refer further to the agency. They do not seem to want to take any responsibility for ensuring that state jobs remain throughout the country.
Mr. Speaker! This is not an isolated case. Just as my colleague spoke about, it has been shut down in several locations previously. The question is whether you intend to continue in that direction. We see the same development in other places as well. The state service centers, which the Minister brings up here, have been shut down in several locations.
Jobs are centralized, and the distance between citizens and the state grows. It always goes in the same direction, from smaller municipalities to larger cities. In that case, it is not quite sufficient to say that it is the agency's responsibility. The government must also be able to describe what idea one has for the state's presence in the country. Ultimately, it is the government that governs the agencies, and one needs to take responsibility for the whole.
It is the government that sets goals, makes priorities, and sets economic frameworks. If the result of those priorities time and again is that state jobs are centralized away from smaller towns, other decisions need to be made. The goals and priorities need to be changed.
Mr. Speaker! It matters whether the state is present. It is about trust and the confidence that the government is serious about the whole country living and developing. When jobs are moved, the opposite signal is sent. The state exists for some parts of the country but not for others.
The state's authorities must be more than just an efficient administration. The state also bears a social responsibility. The Minister for Finance says here that the state is growing in other areas. But that does not help Vetlanda and its inhabitants, and it does not help the employees at Skatteverket in Vetlanda either.
Mr. Speaker! It is not the first time that the Skatteverket office in Vetlanda has been threatened with closure. Two times previously, there have been plans to close the workplace and move the jobs. Most recently, Vetlanda was included in a larger plan where more offices around the country were to be closed, including those in Simrishamn and Enköping, which are now closed.
The opposition was then very great. The then Social Democratic government acted. The Government Offices were tasked with following up on the agencies' locations, and the planned closures never took place. It was possible to act then, and it is possible to act now if the political will exists.
Mr. Speaker! The Government governs agencies such as the Swedish Tax Agency through letters of instruction, instructions, and ordinances. The Government can task agencies to safeguard state presence and jobs throughout the country.
When the tax office in Vetlanda was last threatened with closure along with several other offices, there was a willingness to take responsibility for the whole, which seems to be completely lacking in the Finance Minister today.
I wonder if the government has any idea or plan at all for how state jobs can exist throughout the country. Is anything being done to prevent agencies and state employment opportunities from gradually disappearing from smaller towns around the country?
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! I did not receive an answer from the Minister on whether there are more offices in the list of closures. That should be information that the Minister possesses.
I understand what is being said about the fact that ministers cannot decide whether there should be an office in Vetlanda or if it should be located in another town. But the strong sense of determination manifested in the answer also needs to be manifested in action.
If one wants state presence, one also needs to speak politically clearly about the fact that there should be decentralized offices. There is a degree of influence here. If we look at how many headquarters are located in Solna, we see that there are more than those located in Gothenburg or in Malmö.
If the authority comes back to the Minister and says that they do not intend to have any local offices at all and that the Swedish Tax Agency is only to exist in Stockholm, will the Minister not act then? Does the Minister have no conception of what state presence should be had throughout the country, if one wants the whole country to live?
My question remains. Are there more offices to be closed? Is this the beginning of something that we will see from the government?
FÖRSTE VICE TALMANNEN
Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson waives her remaining turns. Johanna Haraldsson may have the floor for one further turn if she so wishes.
Johanna Haraldsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I regret that the Minister does not take the opportunity to answer the questions we are asking here today. It might have shown a little more respect for the people who now risk losing their jobs or being forced to move from their place of residence.
This question is ultimately about what kind of Sweden we want. It is about a Sweden where the state is close to people in the entire country – where authorities and state jobs exist in the entire country – or a Sweden where state authorities and jobs disappear step by step from smaller localities.
No one demands a detailed management of every agency decision. But people have the right to expect that the government stands up for the principle of state presence and that the whole country shall live.
Mr. Speaker! In Vetlanda, the municipality risks losing both competence, tax revenues, and residents if people eventually choose to move after the jobs are gone. A closure would weaken the local labor market.
At the same time, it is about people who have done an important job for the state for a long time and who are now being informed that their workplace is to be removed and their everyday lives fundamentally restructured.
They deserve more than silence or a reference to the authorities' internal organization. They deserve political accountability.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.