Changing accountability relations in a welfare state – an assessment based on a study of welfare reforms
Please note: This page may contain data in Norwegian that is not translated to English.
Author
Byrkjeflot, Haldor; Lægreid, Per; Christensen, Tom
Year
2011
Publisher
Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies
Type of publication:
Notat
Link to publication:
https://norceresearch.brage.unit.no/norceresearch-xmlui/bitstream/handle/1956/5988/Notat%2010-2011%20Byrkjeflot%2c%20Laegreid%20and%20Christensen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Link to review:
https://norceresearch.brage.unit.no/norceresearch-xmlui/handle/1956/5988
Number of pages:
47
ISSN:
1503-0946
Language of publication:
Engelsk
Country of publication:
Norge
NSD-reference:
5757
This page was last updated:
2024-08-16 09:09:46.747958
Summary
In this paper we investigate how two major reforms in the Norwegian welfare sector changed accountability relationships. The reforms in question were the NAV reform of the welfare administration that Norway passed in 2005 and implemented through 2009 and the hospital reform of 2002. The NAV reform merged the national pension administration and the employment agency and established local partnerships with the municipality-based social services. The hospital reform transferred ownership from counties to the state and merged hospitals into health enterprises. We map formal accountability relations to see whether they were changed by the reform and how they work in practice. More specifically we address the following accountability relations: Political, managerial, legal, professional and social accountability. We show that the actual accountability relations are not always tight coupled to the formal relations. It is a complex accountability pattern in which different accountability relations supplements each other.