sou · GTB311 · 2006-01-01 00:00:00 — Det kan knappast vara rimligt att en så pass liten organisation inom sig skall hysa den – i övrigt verksamhetsfrämmande – specialistkompetens som torde krävas för att på ett bra sätt förvalta fastigheter. Frågan är då vem som bör överta ansvaret att för statens räkning äga och förvalta de byggnader som HKF äger. Olika alternativ bör väljas om, som utredningen förordar, välfärdsverksamheten inordnas i respektive om HKF kvarstår som en fristående myndighet, enligt följande: I det fall HKF:s verksamhet inordnas i så bör också överta ansvaret för berörda byggnader. är redan, enligt regeringsbeslut, en fastighets- förvaltande myndighet, varför det knappast kan medföra några betydande praktiska problem för verket att ta över detta ansvar. I det fall HKF skulle kvarstå som en fristående myndighet så bör ansvaret för berörda byggnader övergå på Statens fastig- hetsverk. I detta fall behöver visserligen hyresavtal upprättas, men det torde knappast medföra några betydande praktiska problem för vare sig eller HKF. Utredningen har på plats studerat ombyggnadsplanerna för HKF:s anläggningar i och , och bedömer att de pla- nerade ombyggnadsprojekten vore värdefulla att genomföra. Detta eftersom de kommer att medföra att välfärdsverksamheten kan bedrivas i renoverade lokaler, till lägre kostnad och i viss mån även med bättre kvalitet för sjömännen. Det senare gäller särskilt för där HKF:s och verksamheter kommer att bli i stort sett helt integrerade. Såvitt utredningen kan bedöma är möjligheterna att genomföra projekten oberoende av om ansvaret för att förvalta de byggnader som HKF äger läggs på rådet eller, i enlighet med utredningens ovan redovisade förslag, på eller . Mot denna bakgrund föreslår utredningen att förändringarna av fastigheterna i och genomförs i enlighet med tidigare planer. The main task of the Seafarers Welfare Commission is to propose how should organise national welfare activities for seamen. The starting point is the standards laid down in Convention No. 163, on seamens welfare at sea and in port.1 Under the Commissions directives, its objective is fulfilment of the Conven- tion standards at the lowest possible cost. 163 was adopted in 1987. It was ratified by in 1990, as proposed in Government 1988/89:122. Under the Convention, a state that ratifies it must safeguard the provision for seafarers of welfare facilities and services, i.e. various welfare, cultural, recreational and information facilities and ser- vices. This provision must take place both in port and on board ships registered in the country concerned. Exactly which ports and ships are to be covered by the articles of the Convention must be settled by the ratifying state, after consulting the representative organisations of shipowners and seafarers. The Convention stresses the importance of non-discrimination. Accordingly, welfare activi- ties on board the concerned must be provided for the benefit of all seafarers on board, and welfare facilities and services in the country's ports must be run for all seafarers, irrespective of nation- ality, race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion or social origin and irrespective of the State in which the ship on which they are employed is registered. The Convention also states that a ratifying state must ensure that the necessary arrangements are made for financing the welfare facilities and services provided. The Convention prescribes that welfare facilities and services should be reviewed frequently to ensure that they are appropriate in the light of changes in the needs of seafarers resulting from technical, operational and other develop- 1 () is a joint intergovernmental organisation within the framework of the UN system. ments in the industry. Finally, the Convention also contains provisions on cooperation, both among states that have ratified it and with other parties that are in the welfare sector. ratification of the Convention was not thought to require any legislative amendment or similar change. With refer- ence to the work of the (), the Government deemed that was already main- taining welfare activities for seafarers in compliance with the Conventions provisions. HKF is a central government agency under the , Employment and Communications. One of HKFs aims is to offer seamen, as efficiently as possible, a meaningful and attractive range of leisure and cultural activities. Accordingly, HKFs work includes distributing books, newspapers, films and TV programmes to Swedish ships; offering keep-fit and sports activi- ties both on board and ashore; and running seamens clubs, pro- transport facilities, etc in selected ports. At year-end 2003, HKF had 29 permanent employees. In 2003, the costs of activities amounted to some million. They are financed primarily by the organisations grant – defined in the government budget – from the 's fairway dues.2 This grant, which amounts to million from 2004, accounted for some 73 per cent of HKFs income in 2003. HKFs other income consists mainly of direct charges for certain services (including rental of films to subscribing ships), which accounted for some 24 per cent of revenue altogether in 2003. In addition, HKF has some income from grants and donations from munici- palities and private organisations, payroll grant, financial income and other sources. HKF conducts activities in seven locations: besides its head office in central , it has branches adjacent to the ports of (where its Seamens Library is also located), , , , Antwerp and . HKF was set up in 1976, when it replaced the central govern- ment agency known as , which was formed in 1948. The advent of Convention No. 163 brought few, if any, changes in HKFs activities. Thus, no changes took place in either the agencys directives or its official 2 Fairway dues are paid by all ships (at the same rate for Swedish and foreign ) that use Swedish fairways. HKF also continued to apply the same target-group definition and work in the same ports as before, and in so doing was deemed to be complying with the Conventions standards. Most of the services offered by HKF are in line with the stan- dards of Convention No. But HKFs activities are now more extensive than the Convention requires. There are three salient examples of this. First, HKF – admittedly, charging a fee – provides services for seafaring including a small number of foreign- registered ships with Swedish crews, while on the subject of these services the Convention refers only to ships registered within the territory of the country concerned. Secondly, HKFs seamens clubs (especially the one in ) can, in some circumstances, be used by people other than those actively engaged as seafarers, while the category of people who are covered by the Conventions welfare arrangements and measures are seafarers, i.e. as defined in Article 1 of the Convention: any person who is employed in any capacity on board a seagoing ship, whether publicly or privately owned, other than a ship of war. Thirdly, HKF has two stations abroad, while the Conventions standards concerning port facilities and services relate solely to ports in the home country. Activities associated and not associated with the Convention are conducted largely integrated with HKF. The Commission therefore cannot specify the exact scale of those parts of HKF's activities that exceed the Convention's demands. The Commissions rough estimate, however, is that of HKFs total costs in 2003 (i.e. some million), roughly SEK 56m was derived from activities not associ- ated with the Convention. Besides HKF, there are also some other Swedish organisations engaged in welfare activities addressing seafarers. These are, in particular, the seamens churches in nine locations in , and the Church of Abroad in some foreign countries. , we summarise the Commissions comments and propos- als concerning the scope, organisation and funding of welfare facilities and activities for seafarers, and certain issues relating to HKFs properties. Comments and proposals concerning the scope, organisation and funding of welfare facilities and activities for seafarers 163 is one of the ILOs promotional conventions. The final assessment of whether a member state is complying with the standards laid down in a convention can be made by alone. However, the promotional conventions seldom contain precise standards; rather, they leave it largely up to the ratifying state to decide for itself how to attain the objectives defined in the Convention. These objectives are usually worded in very general terms. Accordingly, Convention No. 163 contains few explicit standards concerning the focus of welfare facilities and activities, and it entirely lacks quantitative instructions on their nature. Given these considerations, there is no point in attempting to establish a general minimum level required to fulfil a promotional convention such as No. Nonetheless, a member state that ratifies Convention No. 163 is not completely free to choose the level of its own welfare activities. Under Article 19(8) of the , in no case shall the adoption of any Convention or any Recommendation by the Conference, or the ratification of any Convention by any Member, be deemed to affect any law, award, custom or agreement which ensures more favourable conditions to the workers concerned than those provided for in the Convention or Recommendation. The consequence of this appears to be that , by ratifying Convention No. 163, has in practice under- taken to retain broadly the same level of welfare activities as existed at the date of ratification, i.e. However, Article 19(8) does not mean that a country is pre- vented, in every situation, from changing the facilities and services that are deemed to meet the standards of a ratified convention. ratification does not, for example, prevent the country from adjusting the scale of its welfare activities with reference, for example, to objectively observable changes in the size of the mer- chant navy, or from implementing changes that result in activities being conducted more efficiently. The Commission has assumed that the level applying at the time of ratification is identical to HKFs level at the time. However, the Commission assumes that the commitment relates solely to services actually covered by the Convention and, accordingly, does not cover cases where HKF's activities extend further than the Convention's standards. The development of welfare activities since 1990 has been such that may be said to have amply met the requirement of maintaining largely the same standard level of welfare activities as that prevailing at the time of ratification. The consequences of Article 19(8) must be taken into account in an analysis of how should organise welfare activities for seafarers. The Commission has therefore not deemed it meaningful to carry out a completely open-ended review of the focus, scope and organisation of welfare activities. Instead, the Commission has concentrated its considerations primarily on the question of how the Convention commitment could be fulfilled at the lowest possible cost, given the restriction that has undertaken to maintain broadly the same standard as at the date of ratification. In the Commissions estimation, substantial cost reductions are unlikely to be attainable within the framework of the present organisation, focus and scope of welfare activities. In its report, instead, the Commission discusses which cost-reducing changes in the present organisation, focus and scope of welfare activities could be undertaken, given the restriction that has undertaken to retain broadly the same standard as at the date of ratification. In this context, the Commission analyses two types of potentially cost-reducing changes: Changes that, with a high degree of probability, should be compatible with regulations. The report discusses four conceivable changes of this kind: –discontinuing the portions of HKFs activities that are not subject to the Conventions standards –outsourcing activities that HKF is currently managing under its own aegis –enhancing collaboration between HKF and other Swedish welfare providers –attaining administrative rationalisation by integrating the welfare activities conducted by HKF into a larger organisa- tion. Changes that are less obviously compatible with regulations. The Commission discusses two conceivable changes of this kind. The first is, as far as possible, to replace the collective book-lending model currently applied by HKF (lending of book crates to ships by the Seamens Library) by an individual model whereby individual seafarers are referred to their local The second change is to phase out the port services currently provided by HKF (except for ship visits, which still seem to be necessary) and, instead, set up a trans- port service adapted to seafarers circumstances that offers visiting seamen transport to activities within the framework of the ordinary range of public cultural and recreational activities. Both these solutions appear to meet the standards of Conven- tion No. On the other hand, it is less evident that would consider that the changes entailed by these solutions would be compatible with commitment to retain broadly the same standards as at the date of ratification. Before these solutions can be implemented, further consideration is therefore necessary. The risk of arousing international ill- feeling (if the were ultimately to find that the measures conflicted with regulations) must be balanced against the urgency of the potential savings. An assessment of this kind can be made only by the Government. The report also analyses suitable ways of funding the welfare activities that , under its Convention commitment, has pledged to provide. In the Commission's view, the welfare activities tied to the Convention should continue, as hitherto, to be funded mainly through some form of collective charge from sources. In addition, as to date, it should be possible for direct charges for individual services to make a valuable contribution at the . Nevertheless, the Commission considers that the principal source of funding – the collective charge from sources – should afford better matching of the charge and what it covers than in the present-day model. In the current funding model, with HKF receiving a grant out of the fairway dues, aggregate charges levied on ships sailing under Swedish and foreign flags are not in a reasonable proportion to the different groups use of HKFs services. Roughly speaking, foreign-registered ships probably account for some million of the current grants from fairway dues (SEK 19.5m), which fund services provided solely for Swedish-registered ships. To attain a greater balance and create a collective charge that more closely matches what it is supposed to cover, the Commission con- siders that the current charge should be divided into two. First, the services associated with the Convention that are used by foreign- registered ships, i.e. primarily port services in , should go on being funded through a grant from the fairway dues. Secondly, the services tied to the Convention that primarily cater for Swedish-registered ships, i.e. services for ships at sea, should be funded through a collective charge on Swedish-registered ships only. The detailed design of the proposed funding model should be studied further. In its report, the Commission states certain other premises for an assignment of this kind, including two possible options for the collective charge that is to be imposed on Swedish-registered ships only. Moreover, the Seafarers Welfare Commission puts forward the following proposals: The welfare activities conducted by HKF should be integrated into the . With a measure of this kind, administrative synergy gains, with resulting cuts of some million in the annual costs of administering welfare activities, should be attainable. Two other factors suggest that welfare activities should be integrated into the Administration. First, these activities are now funded mainly – and will go on being funded if the Commissions proposal for a new funding model is followed – by means of the Administra- tions fairway dues. Secondly, it seems advantageous to con- duct welfare activities in the same organisation that deals with other aspects of life at sea. An autonomous organisational committee should be formed to prepare the integration of welfare activities into the . Before these activities are integrated into the Administration, their parameters should be settled as far as possible. Before the de facto integration takes place, such matters as cost-cutting and partial discontinuation, if any, of activities should be completed. The Commission therefore proposes that the Swedish Government assign an autonomous organisational committee to analyse and propose the way in which welfare activities should be integrated into the Admini- stration. The organisational committee should analyse, at a detailed level, how to realise the administrative synergy gains and what other effects on the staff and costs will arise. More- over, the organisational committee should also be charged with implementing certain other in-depth analyses discussed in the report, as follows:3 –The organisational committee should investigate the scope for discontinuing the portions of HKFs activities that are not subject to the standards of Convention No. 163 and, in so doing, clarify the cost and staff effects of such a change. Given that the costs of activities not tied to the Convention may be assumed, at a rough estimate, to have totalled some SEK 5-6m in 2003, and that they generated revenues of some SEK 3m in that year, the maximum saving potential may be estimated at approximately SEK 2-3m a year. –The organisational committee should investigate how the funding model for welfare activities should, in detail, be designed. This analysis should be carried out in accordance with the premises stated by the Commission in its report. The body that is henceforth to be responsible for welfare activities should be instructed to seek greater collaboration with other Swedish welfare providers (in particular, the seamens churches and the Church of Abroad). The Commission proposes that the Government should instruct the body that will henceforth be in charge of welfare activities (i.e. the , if the Commissions organisational proposals are approved) to examine the scope for, and work for, increased cooperation. On the other hand, the Commission considers that there is, in practice, very limited potential for attaining cost reductions by outsourcing activities now con- ducted by HKF under its own aegis. The reason why the Commission considers that the question of increased coopera- tion should not be dealt with by the organisational committee proposed above – as would otherwise be conceivable – is that enhanced cooperation should be based on mutual agreements among the providers concerned. 163 should be cited in the directives for the body responsible. With its promotional character, Convention No. 163 is unsuitable for more detailed regulation in a Swedish statute. Nonetheless, to underline the Conventions role as the 3 In the event that the Commissions proposal to integrate welfare activities into the , and to have an organisational committee prepare this integration, is not implemented, these in-depth analyses should nonetheless be performed but then, we suggest, by the body that is henceforth to be responsible for welfare activities. activities, the Commission considers that it should be cited in the directives of the body that is henceforth to be responsible for welfare activities, i.e. the if the Commissions organ- isational proposals are approved. At present, the Convention is not mentioned in HKFs directives. At a rough estimate, the Commission finds that the above propos- als may be expected to result in an annual cost saving of some million. Should the Government choose also to imple- ment the two changes discussed in the report that are less obvi- ously compatible with the regulations, the total saving poten- tial is expected to rise to some SEK 11-13m a year. Comments and proposals concerning HKFs properties Under supplementary directives, the Seafarers Welfare Commis- sion was instructed in to investigate whether it is suitable for HKF to continue to manage its own properties, and to assess the suitability of two conversion projects at the HKFs facilities in and . HKF and its precursor, , have owned and managed properties since the 1950s. How- ever, only a small proportion of the premises where HKF conducts its activities are also owned by HKF. These are the in which activities take place adjacent to the ports of (including the Seamens Library), and . In all these cases, the stand on land owned by the munici- pality concerned. The other premises used by HKF for its own activities are rented from external landlords. Although HKF owns , the Government has not taken a decision on whether HKF is to be a property-managing agency, as the Ordinance (1993:527) on management of state-owned etc requires. Details of the two conversion projects that the Commission is to assess for suitability are as follows: In HKF has, for a year or so, held discussions with the sports club . This club has registered its interest in using part of the site at the HKF facility in , and in buying or renting the in the area that currently houses the Seamens Library. intends to use the library as its club premises. If the project is implemented, the Seamens Library will be housed in the same as the Seamens Club. The which houses the Seamens Club is to undergo extensive conversion and refurbishment, which in HKFs estimation will cost some million. HKF for its part requires to defray all the costs of the conver- sion. According to HKF, its own annual costs may be expected to decrease by some as a result of the project. : in October 2003, HKF and the Seamens Church in entered into an agreement aimed at far-reaching cooperation and, provided that the requisite grant for a conver- sion and extension of HKFs facility was approved, also a relo- cation of both these activities in these premises. One purpose of the project is to create a single venue for seafarers in , and it is expected to result in more or less full integration of the activities of HKF and the Seamens Church. The conversion and extension of HKFs facility are expected to involve an investment totalling some million, for which HKF has applied for full cost coverage from the ITF Seafarers Trust. A grant is considered by HKF to be essential for the planned cooperation. The Seafarers Welfare Commission proposes that HKF should not, in the future, bear responsibility for being a property-manag- ing agency. One reason for this is that the Government's and Swedish Parliament's (Riksdag's) general ambition is that the num- ber of property-managing agencies should be reduced as far as possible. Another reason is that HKF (with fewer than 30 employ- ees) is too small to be a property-managing agency. It is reasonable to expect such a small organisation to possess the specialist skills (skills that, moreover, are outside the scope of its activities) that good property management requires. The question, then, is who should assume responsibility for owning and managing, on behalf of the Swedish state, the currently owned by HKF. The option that should be chosen is different according to whether, as the Commission recommends, the welfare activities are integrated into the or whether HKF remains an autonomous agency: In the event that HKFs activities are integrated into the , the latter should also assume responsi- bility for the concerned. is already, under a government decision, a property-managing agency and it can therefore entail any substantial practi- cal problems for the Administration to assume this responsi- bility.