Handlingsfrihet i ekonomiskt bistånd: en studie om organiseringen och handläggandet av nyansökningar

Sammanfattning: The Swedish welfare organisation is built on the fact that the legislation gives the municipalities and social workers guidance and direction how to assess cases. Through out this the clients have right to be assessed both equally and individually. How is this done? The purpose of this paper was to examine the effect of the organisation referred to the social workers ability to discretion and the evaluation of the assessment in first time applications of social assistant cases. The purpose was also to look for variations in decisions and if these could be explained out of organisational and assessment effects. To examine this we chose a qualitative method where we held interviews with social workers who handle first time applications. The social workers came from eight different municipalities. They where also asked to assess two cases specially made for this paper. The outcome of these assessments was in the analyses compared with the social workers statements according to guiding principal and custom. The results showed that organizations can be more or less bureaucratic. For organizations with less specialized activity the management practice control over the social workers discretion while in more bureaucratic organizations this control is part of the structure itself.