Vi kan bevilja vad vi vill! Men... -En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterares resonemang rörande handlingsutrymme och budget

Sammanfattning: Recently, municipal social departments have been effected harder by budget cutbacks. The aim of our study is to investigate how social workers’ discretion has been influenced when assessing actions under the impact of the budget, the law and the consideration of client needs. The study has been conducted using a qualitative approach in which seven semi-structured interviews were held with social secretaries that exercise official authority in their duties. The results show that organizational policy has an effect on the discretion of the social workers in such a way that they feel obligated to reject expensive treatments in favour of less expensive ones, to the cost of the client’s wellbeing. On the other hand, fighting spirit is high among the social secretaries we interviewed, and they are increasingly finding new ways to argue for their preferred action and thus improve their client’s social health.