Response to interpellations 2024/25:54 and 90 on the closure of service offices
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The government considers that state presence and service throughout the country is important to simplify for individuals and increase public benefit 1. At the same time, KD argues that every tax krona must be used wisely and that state-funded activities must constantly be reassessed and prioritized 1. KD argues that the balance between geographical accessibility and cost-effectiveness is important 1. S considers that the state should be present throughout the country to build public trust and provide legitimacy for the exercise of authority. S argues that the government's decision to drastically reduce resources for the state's service offices destroys this trust.
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)
Mr. Speaker! Peder Björk has asked me three questions in connection with the reduction in funding for Statens servicecenter that the government proposes in the budget bill for 2025. Peder Björk has asked me on what basis the government has based its proposal for reduced financial resources for service offices, what effects I and the government assess the proposal for reduced resources for service offices will have, and how many fewer service offices I and the government assess there will be at the end of 2027.
Furthermore, Linus Sköld has asked me if I have taken the initiative to conduct an analysis of which service offices will be phased out as a result of the cuts and if I can, in that case, report on the results. Linus Sköld has also asked me how I intend to act to ensure citizens' access to state services throughout the country.
The Government, within the framework of the work on the budget bill, has made a collective assessment of what opportunities Statens servicecenter has to streamline its operations with service offices. This has been done, among other things, based on what the National Audit Office pointed out in its review of the operations, what the development has looked like regarding the number of visits, and how the appropriation level has changed over time.
State presence and service throughout the country is important to simplify for individuals and increase public benefit, but it is at the same time important that every tax krona is used wisely and that state-funded activities are constantly subject to reassessment and prioritization.
When it comes to the consequences of the appropriation changes, I avoid commenting on the decommissioning of offices and the like at this stage. The savings will certainly have consequences for the availability of service offices. How this is distributed between decommissioning and, for example, changes in office size and opening hours is, however, a matter that the agency Statens servicecenter is now working on and is best suited to answer.
Regarding the question of specific analyses, the government will continue to keep itself informed on how this work develops. The government considers the balance between geographical accessibility and cost-effectiveness to be important and intends to obtain in-depth underlying material regarding how the authority plans to organize the operations with service offices going forward. In connection with this, the government intends to clarify some overarching principles for the organization.
Peder Björk (S)
Mr. Speaker! In a debate here in the chamber a little over a year ago, Minister Slottner stated the following: I view the state service offices and the activities of Statens servicecenters very positively. The number of state service offices has increased at a rapid pace during recent years. I think it is a very good measure. I believe that we can develop the service offices even further. It is, after all, an activity that has increased at a rapid pace in a short time. I view, as said, very positively on this.
I wonder now, Mr. Speaker: What has happened since then? Why has it become less important for Minister Slottner today to protect the service offices? It cannot be interpreted in any other way when the SD government puts forward a proposal for a budget where they are to cut the service offices' financial resources by 150 million kronor over the next three years. That corresponds to approximately 10 percent of the total budget for the service offices, Mr. Speaker, and such a reduction will clearly have consequences.
Mr. Speaker! For us Social Democrats, it is self-evident that the state should be present throughout the country. This applies both in the form of state jobs and state agencies. During the period 2014-2022, when there were Social Democrat-led governments, a large number of state jobs and operations were established on-site, both relocated and newly located to places primarily outside the major cities around the country.
It was not only relocation and relocalization that took place. Decisions were also made by Social Democratic governments to increase the number of service offices, and after a thorough investigation, it was decided to invest in a total of 28 new offices in the coming years. This concerned not only areas all over the country but also vulnerable areas in cities. Ironically, it was just today that Minister Slottner inaugurated the last of these 28 offices in Rinkeby.
A state presence throughout the country builds public trust and also provides legitimacy for the exercise of authority, something that I believe the SD government is now destroying with its decision to reduce resources so drastically to the state's service offices, and my question to Minister Slottner is therefore quite simple: Which offices does the Minister want to see closed? Which offices does the Minister want to have reduced opening hours?
There must still be an idea of how the operations are to be conducted moving forward, or is it simply that the SD government needed to find savings in order to be able to implement and finance its tax cuts for rich men in large cities? In that case, the fine words I began with are not worth much.
I would therefore like the Minister Slottner to explain why you are doing this and where in Sweden he wants to reduce the service.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! "Many of us live in the Swedish heartland, in our small towns and in the countryside. In fact, only every third Swede lives in urban or metropolitan areas. Still, the heartland's perspective is strangely absent from the debate. [- - -] The heartland shall not be left to wither. Not if we Christian Democrats get to decide. We see the Swedish heartland. And we will fight for it. So that all of Sweden can function."
This is a direct quote from Norrbottens-Kuriren on October 12, 2021, signed by two cabinet colleagues of Erik Slottner, namely his party leader Ebba Busch and Rural Affairs Minister Kullgren.
Cut the SD-government's budget 2025, and the heartland is suddenly forgotten. That the service centers exist, from and starting today, in 148 places around our country is about the heartland's trust in the state.
I imagine that Erik Slottner knows exactly what it looks like in my home county of Norrbotten and the location for the publication that I just quoted from. On August 16 this year, Slottner visited Norrbotten together with the Kristdemokraterna parliamentary group. Perhaps he visited the service centers in Kiruna, Gällivare, Jokkmokk, Överkalix, Haparanda, Boden, Piteå, or Arvidsjaur and can say which of these are now to close? Which of these offices is it that will need to close as a result of this year's and this budget's savings? When that saving is to be tripled over a three-year period, perhaps all must close.
The point is that the government is withdrawing its hand from the state's presence throughout the country, and we are not talking about presence in the sense of state work occasions but about the accessibility of the services of the citizen-facing authorities.
For those who are in a digital exclusion and cannot use BankID, there are no alternatives other than to seek out the service centers. If the office in Överkalix, which today is open on Mondays and Wednesdays between 10:00 and 16:00, must close, it is 8 miles to travel to the nearest service office. Even if the office in Överkalix has few visitors, those who live there will have a diminished trust in the state and poorer access to state services than people living in other places in the country.
I really want to know which offices Erik Slottner envisions will close as a consequence of the government's budget. It is sincerely meant.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.