Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden The National Government Service Centre Sami Soliman Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Division for Public Administration

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Policy context Swedens administrative model –Free standing agencies –Considerable delegation to agencies Technological changes Fiscal pressure –Budget process reform (1990s an onwards) –Annual productivity dividend –Structural reforms during the 1990s. Such scope is limited today

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Basics Established in June 2012 Services within –payroll administration –financial administration –e-commerce 230 employees Currently manages the administration for about 100 government agencies, administering payrolls of more than public employees.

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Key motives Centralisation allows agencies to focus on core tasks Savings from shared investments in IT Incentives for the development of a market for administrative services

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Key features Agencies join the Service Centre voluntarily and stepwise Three different levels of service Unitary price model – financed by user fees with the requirement of full recovery of all costs

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Development and implementation Driven from an e-government perspective Essentially a bottom-up process Needs and possibilities identified within the agencies themselves have guided the reform from the start The reform has drawn on experiences from both the private sector and similar reforms in other countries administrations

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Challenges Maintaining a strategic perspective – increases in efficiency and effectiveness will not be achieved immediately Achieving the required volumes with a model based on voluntariness The total gains for the public sector has to be sufficiently considered Keeping the balance between standardisation and customer accommodation

Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Sweden Lessons learned Bottom-up approach helps during development, top-down approach would facilitate implementation Crucial to base the reform on the departments where best practices were in place A long-term perspective is essential