Liknande ärenden men olika beslut: En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterares upplevelser av rättssäkerhet i förhållande till arbetsbelastning och handlingsutrymme

Sammanfattning: This is a qualitative study amongst professional social workers who work with financial aid for adults in Sweden. The aim of this study was to gain knowledge and understanding of how social workers view their discretion in relation to workload and legal certainty. We have conducted six interviews with social workers. By using Weber’s theory of the bureaucratic organization, Michel’s theory of goal displacement, as well as Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats, we intended to explain why some social workers choose to use their discretion to urgently grant financial aid applications when others do not. The results of this study show that the majority of the social workers that were interviewed argued that their position within the organization allowed them to more or less choose when to use their discretion. Furthermore, the results also indicate that an increased workload consequently leads to the social workers not using their discretion to achieve the goal of the organization, which is to help their clients to self-sufficiency but to achieve smaller goals that keep the organization afloat. The results also show that this tendency has a negative impact on the work as it diminishes the legal certainty in many of the decisions that they make.