Reform of the employment and welfare administrations — the challenges of co-coordinating diverse public organizations
| Author | Per Lægreid,Tom Christensen,Anne Lise Fimreite |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852307081149 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Reform of the employment and welfare administrations – the
challenges of co-coordinating diverse public organizations
Tom Christensen, Anne Lise Fimreite and Per Lægreid
Abstract
This article addresses one of the most comprehensive structural reforms in recent
Norwegian administrative history: a merger of the employment and national
insurance administrations, combined with more formal collaboration with the
local government social services administration. The reform can be seen as a
’whole-of-government’ initiative intended to increase the cocoordinative capacity
of government to address ‘wicked problems’ cutting across existing policy areas
and government levels in a multi-level governance system. This article examines
the following questions: First, what characterizes the organizational thinking
related to this reform? Second, how can we understand the reform process in
terms of a transformative perspective combining instrumental, cultural and
environmental features? Third, what are the potential effects and implications of
the new structure for political control and institutional autonomy, for relations
between central and local administrations, and for the main goals stated? The
theory base for the analyses is a transformative approach.
Points for practitioners
This is an example of a big, important and complex reform characterized by
ambiguous goals and organizational thinking with uncertain effects, which the
practitioners have to live with. It is a whole-of-government initiative with a strong
positive symbolic flavour, but working horizontally is a time- and resource-
consuming activity. One challenge is how to balance vertical accountability, hori-
zontal accountability and responsiveness to users. Another is how to balance such
whole-of-governance initiatives with performance management systems. A third
Tom Christensen is at the University of Oslo, Norway. Anne Lise Fimreite is at the University of
Bergen, Norway. Per Lægreid is at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Copyright © 2007 IIAS, SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
Vol 73(3):389–408 [DOI:10.1177/0020852307081149]
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
is the balance between centralization and decentralization. Such reforms have to
be seen as a long-term political project.
Keywords: control and autonomy, coordination, joined-up-government,
multi-level governance, post-NPM reforms, transformative perspective, welfare
administration, whole-of-government
Introduction
This article addresses one of the largest reforms of public sector coordination in
recent Norwegian administrative history: a merger of the employment and national
insurance administrations, combined with more formal collaboration between this
new administration and the local government social services administration . The
aims of the reform are to create more jobs and to make the administration more
user-friendly, more holistic and more efficient. The reform can be seen as a ‘whole-
of-government’ initiative intended to increase the capacity of government to address
‘wicked problems’ cutting across existing policy areas and to improve vertical and
horizontal coordination in the fields of policy and implementation.
The whole-of-government approach can be interpreted as a reaction to the New
Public Management (NPM) reforms which have dominated reform efforts in many
countries over the last two decades (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007; Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2004). The NPM focus on vertical specialization or devolution and on
horizontal differentiation, based on the principle of ‘single-purpose organizations’,
and has made the public apparatus in many countries rather fragmented (Christen-
sen and Lægreid, 2001). Even though this development may have brought some
advantages – such as clearer visions and goals, more professional autonomy, more
easily measurable performance and results, clearer accountability and greater use of
incentives – two of the major problems of fragmentation seem to be political control
and coordination. These concerns are at the forefront of the post-NPM reforms now
emerging in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand, which were NPM trail-blazers (see Christensen and Lægreid, 2006a).
As a response to the increased fragmentation caused by previous reform pro-
grammes, these countries have adopted coordination and integration strategies. In
the second generation of modern public sector reforms, there has been a shift of
emphasis away from structural devolution, disaggregation and single-purpose
organizations and towards a whole-of-government approach (Christensen and
Lægreid, 2006b). The slogans ‘joined-up-government’ and ‘whole-of-government’
have provided new labels for the old doctrine of coordination in the study of public
administration (Hood, 2005). In addition to the issue of coordination, the problem of
integration was also a main concern behind these reform initiatives (Mulgan, 2005).
While the terms are new, they represent old problems. Attempts to coordinate
government policy-making and service delivery across organizational boundaries are
not a new phenomenon (Ling, 2002; Richards and Kavanagh, 2000).
Whole-of-government type coordination can take many forms, from smart prac-
tice and various new coordinative efforts, without structural changes, to organiza-
tional mergers and other structural coordinative measures (Pollitt, 2003a). We will
390 International Review of Administrative Sciences 73(3)
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