Outsourcing of Scandinavian welfare societies? Consequences of private and nonprofit service provision for active citizenship

One of the most important social issues today is who should operate our social services and how service contracts are to be distributed and managed. In Scandinavia there is little disagreement about that the public should pay for the most important services in education, health and social services. However, there is considerable variation in how welfare is distributed and managed among the Scandinavian countries, as the project's publications show. By comparing the developments one can see what consequences the various control mechanisms have for the mix of commercial, nonprofit and public providers, and for users of the services. Sweden has gone further in terms of the introduction of user choice and vouchers, reducing barriers to establishment of new service institutions, and allowing distribution of profits. This has created a strong growth incentive in the profit-oriented enterprises offering welfare services. This has created a strong growth incentive in the profit-oriented enterprises that provide welfare services. It has also attracted international investor capital. The share of commercial service providers has increased from 9 to 19 percent of those employed in the welfare field, while the public sector declines and non-profit sector remains at 3 percent. Norway and Denmark have by comparison a a stronger element of nonprofit providers with respectively 8 and 14 percent of welfare employment, but the for-profit share is growing faster. Different welfare policies will have consequences for how users and their families can contribute to the management and design of services. Which room is given to be active citizens? To investigate this, the researchers on the project made case studies of private and public schools and institutions for the elderly in two municipalities in each of the three Scandinavian countries. There is striking little variation between the institutions for elderly when it comes to active citizenship. For schools there are major differences and in general nonprofit schools provide greater opportunity for parents and students to take part in governance and influencing the services, and this is contingent on the public regulation of the service area. When nonprofit institutions get some autonomy from government regulations while users can choose institutions that fit their preferences, nonprofit providers can develop distinctive services and facilitate active citizenship. Sweden has introduced user choice in more and more areas with no means of ensuring the nonprofit contribution to welfare mix. The challenge is to also create conditions for nonprofit welfare entrepreneurs in areas where they add diversity, innovation and trustworthy services to disadvantaged groups. The Danish model with more differentiated management is better suited to achieve this. A report from the project with popular scientific overview of the key findings is published in Norwegian. In addition, Palgrave Macmillan has accepted an edited book with eight chapters from the project for publication after peer reviews. This will be published during 2016 or early in 2017. Project web-site in English: http://samfunnsforskning.no/isf_intern/Prosjekter/Avsluttede-prosjekter/Utkontraktering-av-skandinaviske-velferdssamfunn

Several recent policy documents point out that welfare services in a traditional sense are not sufficient to meet demanding challenges to the Scandinavian welfare models sustainability. New types of relations between the public purchasers of welfare servi ces and the providers often involve different forms of quasi-markets, open tenders, frame agreements, or user choice. However, the Scandinavian countries have chosen different trajectories: Denmark has for a long time politically favoured non-profit welfa re provision; Sweden has opened up for strong growth in for-profit provision; while Norway prefers public provision as long as there is sufficient capacity, in particular in compulsory education and essential health services. This means the Scandinavian c ountries are excellent cases for comparative studies. To empirically analyse effects of changes in allocation and coordination of contracts to welfare service providers, we use a concept of "active citizenship" that focuses on "choice" in the marketpla ce of welfare services, extended "responsibility" for individual carers, families and communities; and "participation" in service delivery, policymaking and governance (Newman and Tonkens). However, governments promoting active citizenship rights may al so use these collectivist struggles to coopt political claims and turn them into individualized responsibilities and thereby advance consumerism at the expense of voice and power. Active citizenship is a contested concept. This is why we need to combine macro data analysis of the mix of welfare providers and allocation and coordination of contracts, with micro case studies of municipalities that includes interviews with politicians, welfare administrators, care providers, users and recipients and their n ext of kin to observe potentially contradictory and contested effects of how welfare services are allocated, coordinated and provided.