In this thesis, local politicians’ regulation of social work practice’s legal authority to make decisions about distributing welfare is investigated, with a particular focus on elder care. Although social workers are central actors in needs assessment and service allocation, they can only exercise legal authority to make decisions if it has been delegated to them by local politicians. In a highly decentralised welfare state such as Sweden, where municipalities are legally responsible for welfare distribution but differ widely in terms of economic, demographic, and geographic conditions, it is essential to understand the local and political contexts of welfare distribution.

This thesis is positioned at the intersection of social work and political science through the analysis of how local “hard policies” – local political policy documents that determine the scope of legal decision-making authority (DMA) – shape the legal premises for social work practice to distribute elder care. By using principal-agent theory, the interdependent relationship between politicians and social workers is made visible. Local political hard policies are understood as tools for control designed to minimise risks when politicians (principals) delegate authority to social workers (agents). Moreover, the concept of accountability is employed to explain external demands on politicians, their need for control over elder-care distribution, and their need to hold civil servants accountable for welfare distribution.

The thesis is based on four studies. The first maps the extent of social workers’ legal DMA across municipalities. The second examines contrasting types of local political policies as examples of strategies for regulating social workers’ legal discretion. The third investigates the relationship between local conditions – economic, demographic, geographic, and political – and restrictiveness in delegating DMA. The fourth analyses the implications of delegating legal DMA for accountability, depending on whether it is transferred to managers or front line social workers or retained by politicians.

The findings demonstrate that local variation in the design of hard policies determining legal DMA can significantly influence whether and how social workers can legally distribute elder care. In some municipalities, social workers possess wide-ranging legal discretion, while in others their authority is extensively restricted. These differences can be linked to local conditions and politics.

Methodologically, the thesis contributes with a macro level, nationwide mapping and comparative analysis of policy documents on delegation, combined with statistical analyses of factors explaining such variations. Theoretically, it advances social work theory by applying the principal–agent framework and highlighting the distinction between soft (optional) and hard (mandatory) policies. This adds to and enhances the legal dimension of discretion and conceptualises hard policies as core instruments of political control in decentralised welfare. Empirically, it provides systematic evidence of municipal variation in the design of legal DMA and discusses the potential implications for equality in access to services, the rule of law, accountability, and the role of educated social workers in relation to local democracy.

Ultimately, the results reveal that the way delegation is structured have implications for the legal and professional discretion of social workers, as well as potential implications for transparency and accountability – vital for democratic values. Ultimately, the thesis highlights the relation between social work and local politics, while pointing toward a contradicting structure with a complex relationship between local politicians and the public administration.  

Local policy documents play a key role in the provision of social services in decentralised welfare systems. Previous Swedish research shows great municipal variation in local policies for delegation, which determines social workers' legal rights to make decisions about the welfare service given to older people. In this paper, we examine the association between local conditions and the variation of restrictiveness in local policies on delegation for elder care services, by combining data on political rule and economic, demographic, and geographic characteristics of all Swedish municipalities (n = 290), with data on delegation policy. Based on logistic regression models, the results indicate that population density, political rule and average income are correlated with the probability of restrictiveness in delegation. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding local conditions while allocating the responsibility for the provision of welfare in decentralised states with varying local prerequisites. They further highlight the need for studies investigating the consequences of varying local political policies on the outcome of the elder care services provided to older adults.

Research on social work’s relation to local political decisions and the design of political policy documents is scarce. This paper analyses the design of local political policies for elder care in Sweden’s 290 municipalities. The policies determine delegation, i.e. care managers’ legal right to make decisions about the welfare services given to older people. By mapping documents for delegation, the results show that care managers’ delegation varies considerably between municipalities, e.g. by the decision-making being conditioned to local political guidelines, or by consultation with a manager. The Principal Agent theory (PAT) is used to discuss the findings. Analysed through the PAT, care managers can be understood as agents set to perform tasks on behalf of the politicians. Local policies can be viewed as a tool for political control by minimising risks of unpredictability and arbitrariness in decision-making. This raises questions about the role of care managers and the extent of their professional freedom while assessing needs to ensure older people a reasonable standard of living. The results highlight the importance of accounting for the structural political context and its consequences for frontline bureaucrats.

Forskning om det sociala arbetets relation till lokalpolitiska beslut och utformningen av politiska policydokument är bristfällig. I denna artikel analyseras utformningen av lokalpolitiska policys för äldreomsorg i Sveriges 290 kommuner. Policydokumenten fastställer biståndshandläggares delegation – deras legala beslutsfattande om bistånd till äldre. Kartläggningen och kodningen  av  delegationsordningarna visar att biståndshandläggares delegation varierar avsevärt mellan Sveriges kommuner, exempelvis genom att villkora att beslutsfattandet ska följa lokala riktlinjer eller föregås av samråd med en chef. Resultatet diskuteras utifrån principal–agent teorin. Sett i ljuset av principal–agent teorin så kan biståndshandläggare betraktas som agenter – satta att utföra uppgifter på uppdrag av lokalpolitiker. Lokala policys kan ses som ett verktyg för att möjligliggöra politisk kontroll genom att minska risken för oförutsägbarhet och godtycklighet i beslutsfattandet. Detta väcker frågor om biståndshandläggares roll och omfattningen av deras professionella frihet i att bedöma behov för att tillgodose äldre en skälig levnadsnivå. Resultatet lyfter fram vikten av att synliggöra den strukturella politiska kontexten och dess konsekvenser för frontlinjebyråkrater.

Cutbacks and austerity measures were in 2019 estimated in a quarter of the Swedish municipalities because of financial deficit. Due to the urbanization the conditions of the municipalities vary, creating different challenges and possibilities to provide for the necessary welfare service such as elder care. Despite a growing population of older people, previous research shows a decline in residential homes since 1980 as well as a decrease in caretakers receiving home help services. According to an inspection of the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (Inspektionen för vård och omsorg) local policy guidelines, for elder care assessment, are being used to reduce the dissimilarities in decision-making within the municipalities and to control the financial costs by adapting criteria and care limits for the needs assessment. Criticism has, by the Swedish Ombudsman, been directed towards the use of municipal guidelines for not complying with the law and case-law. Despite previous research indicating the usage of municipal guidelines in the needs assessment and decision-making process, municipal guidelines are still a relatively unexplored field. The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand the role of municipal guidelines, for elder care assessment, with regard to the law and the application of the law as well as the role municipal guidelines play according to politicians. In order to achieve this, the following has been examined: 1) the spread and content of the municipal guidelines, 2) the creation and political motives for establishing the guidelines and 3) how the care managers view their impact on the decision-making process. The methods used are semi-structured interviews, a survey, and a documentation review. 

The result shows that municipal guidelines are politically established, that they are widely spread and can be found in 274 out of 290 Swedish municipalities. According to the survey the guidelines contain guidance of law, case-law, and the like, as well as criteria and limits for the needs assessment and decision-making of elder care service. 

The result indicates that the local guidelines compensate for the ambiguity of the Social Services Act (Socialtjänstlagen 2001:453) by reinstating bureaucracy. By limiting the discretion, the guidelines aim to compensate for the lack of competence as well as create certainty and enable political responsibility for the usage of municipal resources as well as accountability between politicians, care managers and citizens. By standardizing, the aim is to achieve equality and legal certainty despite risking the fundamental intentions of the Social Service Act as a framework law designed for individual needs assessment. This study highlights the need to invest necessary resources into creating guidelines in order to make them more accessible, lawful and ensure legal certainty. The conditions, however, vary noteworthy between the municipalities. As a solution, the National Board of Health and Welfare, or some other authority, could be held responsible for developing national guidelines – regularly up to date and based on current law and case-law. In summary, this study shows that municipal guidelines have a widespread impact on the decision-making of care managers. The municipal guidelines thereby have a central role in the application of the law with a noteworthy potential impact on individuals and the help warranted to older people as a consequence. 

Trots att kommunala riktlinjer uppmärksammats som avgörande för hur välfärdens ambitioner för äldreomsorgen tillämpas på lokal nivå genom att vägleda biståndsbedömare i deras bedömningar och beslut så saknas ingående analyser av hur sådana styrdokument är utformade. Syftet med artikeln är att belysa hur det kommunala ansvaret för att tillgodose individuella behov avgränsas i kommunala riktlinjer för biståndsbedömning avseende äldre människor enligt Socialtjänstlagen, liksom hur avgränsningarna underbyggs och legitimeras. Ambitionen är att öka förståelsen för biståndshandläggares arbetsvillkor samt att bidra med underlag för diskussioner om äldreomsorgens styrning. En analys av 51 strategiskt utvalda kommuners riktlinjer har genomförts med stöd i teorin om framing. Analysen visar hur kommuner i riktlinjerna framställs som ansvariga för att tillhandahålla vissa insatser snarare än att, i enlighet med de ambitioner som fanns då SoL infördes, tydliggöra vad som på den lokala nivån är att betrakta som en skälig levnadsnivå när det gäller livsföring i övrigt. Det utrymme som lagen lämnar för lokala anpassningar legitimerar i riktlinjerna istället ett begränsat och specificerat insatsutbud. Begränsningar av det kommunala ansvaret underbyggs och sker även genom såväl korrekt som inkorrekt hänvisning till rättspraxis samt genom att äldres behov av stöd på ett rättsligt tveksamt sätt hänvisas till anhöriga. Riktlinjernas utformning riskerar för det första att – vid tillämpning – ha en negativ inverkan på rättssäkerheten eftersom normerande utbud av insatser är svåra att kombinera med principen om individuell bedömning. För det andra försätter det biståndshandläggarna i en situation där de riskerar att hamna i kläm mellan att följa SoL och lokala föreskrifter då dessa ger motstridiga budskap. För det tredje kan variationer av äldreomsorgens styrning på lokal nivå leda till systematiska skillnader i tillämpningen av lagen. En kartläggning som genomfördes innan artikeln färdigställdes visar att 2019 hade 274 av Sveriges 290 kommuner riktlinjer för biståndsbedömning.