The aim of this study was to explore how social workers interpret the part of the Swedish social services act that regulates each municipality’s responsibility of the people staying in it. The study’s general methodological approach connects to sociology of law. The research questions were: (1) What factors are considered important by the social workers in assessments of responsible municipality? (2) Are there variations in the assessments of responsible municipality and in that case; how can the variations be explained? (3) What discretion do the social workers consider that they have in assessments of responsible municipality? Previous studies have found considerable differences in professional social work assessments in Sweden. 69 social workers completed a questionnaire which included two vignettes. The selection maintained the emergency social services for well above 4 million citizens. Many factors were considered important in assessments of responsible municipality; the most prominent of those was the physical presence in the municipality. Variations appeared especially regarding long-term decisions and could partially be explained by which factors were considered important. The law that regulates the area of interest is a detailed legislation. However, some explanation could be found in Lipskys (2010) theory of Street-level bureaucracy.

The overall purpose of this essay was to provide a better understanding of the importance of discretion for social workers in direct social services. To answer the purpose three questions were formulated: (1) How do social workers define and describe their discretion and their ability to independently accomplish their work? (2) How do social workers experience that workplace organization, policies and economic conditions interact with their discretion and (3) How do social workers experience that the interaction with the client can affect how they use their discretion in the individual case? The method used was qualitative interviews. The theoretical framework was Michael Lipskys (1980) Street-level bureaucracy and the four themes organization, professional role, skills and interaction. The results showed that the respondents, although they did not consider themselves to be affected by the economy still adapted to budget restrictions when they said that they were cost conscious in their work. This adjustment to budget framework could possibly be what made them not feel limited in their work. The organization around the direct social work varied, in spite of this showed the result a broad consensus in the experiences of discretion in direct social work.