The social services as auditees

Politicians’ and officials’ use of Open Comparisons

Abstract

Open Comparisons (OC) is the name of a system for performance measurements that has been implemented in the Swedish municipal welfare sector in recent decades. OC is an example of Audit Society where local governments’ performance is measured with an extensive number of measurements that are exposed to public scrutiny. The experiences of the Swedish OC system have attracted international interest concerning the coverage, scope, and transparency, but also concerning voluntarism and policy sensitivity. The aim of this article is to investigate how politicians and civil servants within the Swedish social services use the OC system, and also to explain their use. The empirical investigation is based on a survey of 544 politicians and officials in randomly selected municipalities. The analysis shows that the OC system is mainly used for identifying needs for improvements, evaluating developments over time, and reporting to superior levels. The use is largely determined by whether the user perceives that the OC has strong local support, and whether it is perceived as a reliable and mature system. The overall interpretation is therefore that there has been a slow and steady habituation whereby the OC system has gained a natural place as a management tool for both politicians and officials, mainly with consequences of changed attitudes and governance practices and, although to a lesser extent, some changed operational processes.