With this study, our purpose has been to achieve profounded knowledge and understanding regarding the use of discretion among social workers specialized in social allowance issues. The Social Services Act, structured as a framework law in the Swedish context, provides the social worker with a certain degree of discretion, in order to enable accommodated decisions depending on client case specifics. This study problematizes these aspects of legal security, and our intention has been to examine which factors impact the assessments social workers carry out in statutory decisions of social allowance applications. To attain this, we narrowed down our intention into a number of distinct and delimitated research questions: (1) Which elements of the client case impact the social worker’s assessment? (2) Which external aspects influence the social worker’s assessments and decisions? (3) How do social workers decide the client’s credibility?   In order to establish answers to our research questions, we have utilized a qualitative approach of research by exerting qualitative interviews in addition to a vignette study. We have conducted five interviews with social workers specialized in social allowance issues. The empirical material was analyzed and illustrated in the view of Lipsky’s descriptive theory of street-level bureaucracy, and in the light of different theories of authoritarian power, as constituted by Lukes and Foucault.   Within the municipality subject to our research, our vignette study establishes the fact disparities exist among the assessments social workers decide from an application of social allowance. The result of our study exhibit social workers’ grounds of assessment are influenced by a number of aspects. These facets of impact compose internal factors existing within the client case frame. Related to the unique characteristics of a client’s situation, the internal factors also depend on the relation created between social worker and client. Furthermore, the social worker’s assessment is affected by external factors including colleague consultation, supervisor influence and contemporary work load levels. Additionally, our study implies aspects influencing decision-making of social workers occurring on a meta level, which we have opted to denominate semi-external factors. These factors embrace levels of client credibility as well as aspects of power present in the social worker – client relation.

Abstract This paper is a peer-review about social workers´ experiences and descriptions of making individual assessments of their unemployed clients when working toward self-sufficiency and eventual obstacle for making them. The paper also deals with how social workers prioritize their work tasks. The study was conducted through interviews with five social workers at the same workplace. The results have been analyzed using theories of discretion, street-level bureaucrats and client dimensions within a street-level bureaucracy. The result shows that lack of time and limitation of discretion have negative influences in the social workers’ ability to make individual assessments. The result also shows that individual assessments are foremost made when the clients mismanage their planning and are risking not getting their application for financial assistance approved. Further the results show that the processing of applications and payment of financial assistance is a priority task since it is considered to be most important to clients and result in the greatest consequences for both social workers and clients if not performed. The discussion that follows is about the possible consequences of prioritizing work tasks this way. / Sammanfattning Denna uppsats är en kollegiegranskning och handlar om socialsekreterares upplevelser och erfarenheter av att göra individuella bedömningar av sina arbetslösa klienter i arbetet mot självförsörjning och eventuella hinder för dessa. Uppsatsen beskriver även om hur socialsekreterare prioriterar sina arbetsuppgifter. Studien har genomförts genom intervjuer med 5 socialsekreterare på en arbetsplats. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån teorier om handlingsutrymme, frontlinjebyråkrater och klientdimensioner inom en frontlinjebyråkrati. Resultatet visar att tidsbrist och begränsningar i handlingsutrymmet båda är faktorer som har en negativ påverkan på en socialsekreterares förutsättningar att göra individuella bedömningar. Resultatet visar även att individuella bedömningar främst görs när en klient misskött sin planering och riskerar avslag på sin ansökan om ekonomiskt bistånd. Vidare visar resultatet att handläggning av ansökningar om och utbetalning av ekonomiskt bistånd är en prioriterad arbetsuppgift då den anses vara viktigast för klienterna samt resulterar i störst konsekvenser för både socialsekreterare och klienter om den inte utförs.

This paper aims to investigate how needs assessors in the municipality experience their work with elderly people who experience loneliness, and what different types of support measures they can offer. In addition the paper looks into the discretion which the needs assessors use to provide the elderly people with care that is adapted to individual needs. This qualitative study has been carried out conducting semi-structured interviews with seven needs assessors from five different municipalities. The findings indicate that the work with elderly people experiencing loneliness is very much a question of interpretation. Loneliness can manifest itself in different ways and is not always easy to talk about, nor to interpret. The study also shows that individual assessments can be difficult to implement due to strict guidelines and a tight budget. However, the work towards helping-and supporting elder people and acknowledging the issue of loneliness in later life is an important matter for both older people and needs assessors.