"Problematiken är mer komplex än att bara sakna inkomst" : En kvalitativ studie rörande bedömning om ekonomiskt bistånd

Sammanfattning: A Social Services Act was introduced in 2016 to avoid differences concerning assessments between municipalities and to improve legal certainty and equal treatment among applicants. This study is aiming at investigating social security officers’ assessment of applications for income support in order to fulfill the legislator’s aim of the actual act. In more details, the study uncovers criteria for how the social security officers assess whether clients are actively seeking employment or not.   A qualitative approach based on individual semi-structured interviews is conducted with six social security officers from three Swedish municipalities. Interviews are based on a fictional case. Lipsky’s theory of Street-level bureaucrats and Hasenfeld’s Human service organizations theory are applied to analyze collected interviews. The result shows that the amendment in the Social Service Act does not induce major changes in social security officers’ routines. There are various factors influencing these officers’ decision making regarding the clients’ activities to search for jobs. Decision-making is contextually dependent and there is room for discretion concerning the interpretation of the actual Social Service Act. Therefore this act might be improved in order to achieve equal treatment and legal certainty.