With limited funds available, governments around the world might do well to learn from Norway, where local and national authorities have worked together to deliver the country’s widest ever package of welfare reforms.
When the Norwegian Parliament voted in 2005 to modernize the way social benefits are provided to an aging population, many Norwegians assumed they were in for a little bureaucratic remodeling. What they got instead was the biggest public sector reform since the rise of the modern Norwegian welfare state in the late 1940s.
“Very few people understood how big this restructuring was going to be, and absolutely no one realized how hard it would be to execute,” says Yngvar Åsholt, the public administrator assigned to bring it off.
Åsholt, 46, spent three-and-a half years helping construct the National Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), a new organizational structure for what amounted to a third of the national budget — from pensions and unemployment benefits at the top tier of government to drug rehab and housing assistance at the local level.
“Compared with other countries, our major innovation has been to consolidate state and municipal services inside every local NAV office, so users can have something like one-stop shopping,” says Åsholt, who coordinates NAV’s 19 county operations when he’s not directing the nationwide reform program. “Putting state and local employees to work side by side under one office manager was daring. But it was a merger of equals. And it has worked,” he says.
Now that NAV is up and running, Åsholt has turned his attention from planning the reforms to what he calls “content” — the actual parcelling out of benefits and services. “The benefits are largely unchanged,” he says, and so are the criteria. “What’s new is follow-up, follow-up and more follow-up.”
There are now 457 “one-stop” social benefits offices in Norway — one “customer service center” for every 10,000 Norwegians.
Today, citizens just need to look for a red NAV sign. And thanks to Åsholt’s reforms, there are now 457 of them — one “customer service center” for every 10,000 Norwegians.
Half of these offices have a catchment area of fewer than 5,000 people, thus honoring the Norwegian tradition of providing services where people live.
Åsholt has some advice for colleagues in Sweden and elsewhere who are looking at similar types of reform. “You have to stake out the new strategy clearly and convince everyone to stick with it, even though it will mean extra strain for a while,” he says. “Employees have to believe they’re doing the right thing, even when the politicians get impatient or the newspapers lash out.”
