sou · H8B346 · 2020-08-07 00:00:00 — Each of these spheres has its own logic, and a lack of clarity about boundaries entails a risk of inefficiencies, administrative errors, and difficulties calling people to account when mistakes are made. At the same time as such boundaries are necessary, joint initia- tives are often required for a service to be effective. The costs of early interventions in schools are borne by municipal education depart- ments, while the benefits accrue to some extent to other depart- ments or even other sectors. In such situations, special financial and organisational arrangements may be needed to ensure that the measures taken are on an appropriate scale. Measures to increase equality – cross-sectoral proposals Inequality is a complex phenomenon, and measures to limit or reduce it therefore have to be sought across a broad spectrum of policy areas. A selection of the Commission’s proposals are pre- sented below, beginning with cross-sectoral measures and moving on to sector-specific ones. •An important part of the explanation for the successes of the Nordic welfare states in the 20th century is to be found in a historic compromise, whereby the trade unions accepted a free trade policy and rapid restructuring in exchange for an labour market policy and a strong public system of social in- surance. In the last few decades, internationalisation has con- tinued and, if anything, intensified, at the same time as public insurance systems have gradually been eroded. This is part of the background to growing discontent and declining trust. To reduce the risks associated with such a trend, the thinking that was behind the historic compromise should be brought to the fore and allowed to guide current policy. How this should be done is discussed in more detail in the sections on the labour market and social insurance. •Since the crisis in public finances in the 1990s, fiscal policy has been marked by great restraint. A surplus target of 1 per cent of GDP, adopted in 2000, has applied as an anchor with reference to the demographic trend predicted at that time, with a sharply rising dependency ratio. The high level of immigration since the turn of the century has changed this situation and improved the dependency ratio. To be able to make use of this more favourable position, it is essential that immigrants who are in need of education and training measures to gain access to the labour market in the next couple of decades are able to receive them. Such an investment calls for a more fiscal policy, and a renewed discussion about the surplus target and the tax ratio in the light of the greatly changed demographic situation should therefore be initiated. In the absence of the necessary investment, there is a significant risk of the dependency ratio increasing instead. •Since the 1990s, the division of roles between fiscal and monetary policy has also changed, with a greater expectation that monetary policy will be able to handle the fluctuations in the economy previously addressed with fiscal policy interventions. This approach has become increasingly difficult to apply, and has among other things resulted in negative interest rates during what has been described as a period of high economic activity. A re- newed discussion about the role and design of monetary policy and its relationship to fiscal policy in the light of the experience of recent decades is therefore called for. •The strains on the national economy and public finances resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic will not be able to be addressed in the framework of existing restrictions on the tax ratio and fiscal- balance targets. This has already been acknowledged by Commission. A combination of higher taxes and greater fiscal room for manoeuvre will be unavoidable. It is important that these policy changes are implemented with a high level of redistributive ambition. Well-resourced groups in society must shoulder a larger share of the burden, and that ambition must be continuously monitored in budgetary documents, in the same way as during the public financial crisis of the 1990s. •There has been a shift in recent decades in the boundary between the public and private spheres, resulting in a growing number of functions being transferred to the private sector through privat- isation, outsourcing and other market-based or market-like models. This has often been done without a careful analysis of what market failures the underlying public undertaking is in- tended to eliminate and to what extent it is possible to hand over responsibility to private actors. A reappraisal of some of these changes is called for. •A similar review should be carried out of the division of re- sponsibilities within the public sector, between central, regional and local government. The division of responsibilities within different sectors should be based on the character of the public services to be delivered, the relative advantages of the different levels, and the possibility of creating the right incentives for the institutions entrusted with providing the services. •Central government has traditionally played a key role in the development and operation of infrastructure – the mainline rail- ways in the 1850s, and later telecommunications and the supply of electricity – after private attempts had failed or been judged in advance to be impossible. The corporatisation and privatisation of recent decades have left us with no, or under-resourced, central bodies with responsibility for developing the various infra- structure systems. This is detrimental to the expansion and management of the systems and also gives rise to regional im- balances. The problem is particularly noticeable in new areas of technology, such as broadband communication and charging networks for electric vehicles, but can also be seen in the tradi- tional systems. An inquiry should therefore look into a strength- ened role for central government in the infrastructure field, including a public enterprise for telecommunications, a shift in the boundary between public and private in the electricity supply system, and a state-managed charging network for electric vehicles. functional pricing in certain infrastructure sectors may also be required, including in the form of higher charges for access to the rail network. •Socio-economic evaluations of infrastructure projects are carried out in several areas, but have only a limited influence on political priorities. The methodology currently employed in the transport sector, which as well as transport efficiency includes safety and environmental aspects, should be supplemented to include a consistently applied distributional perspective on the projects considered. Once that element is included, greater respect for the outcome of the analyses should be shown in political decisions. •In many areas of the public sector, especially at the municipal level, we find examples of preventive interventions that do not happen because the costs of the measures are borne by one department, while the benefits accrue to other departments or to regional or central government. To ensure that such ‘social investments’ come about, there need to be, on the one hand, an analytical function to develop methodologies for setting pri- orities and, on the other, funding. For some of these investments at least, funding can be secured through existing bodies (such as Kommuninvest), but the analytical function requires a new authority, with expertise similar to that found in existing agencies responsible for analysis in various fields, and involving a signif- icant element of socio-economic cost–benefit analysis. Its role should be to develop and to some extent standardise scientifically based methods for assessing costs and benefits in the area in question, drawing inspiration from existing international models. •As noted earlier, in key areas over-implementation of EU law has occurred, that is to say, for domestic policy reasons, Swedish governments have gone further than the EU rules require. In certain areas, this has had negative distributional consequences. A review should be carried out of more important policy areas, with a view to making more effective use of the available room for manoeuvre. Supervision of compliance with EU-related regu- lations must also be tightened up. Breaches of rules are unaccept- ably frequent in the operations of foreign companies in , for example in the transport and construction sectors. •There is a need for supplementary databases for monitoring, supervision, evaluation and research in a number of fields, such as children’s health, problem gambling, the work environment, unemployment insurance and wealth. This should be made the subject of an inquiry. Particular attention should be paid to areas where data collection has been made more difficult in recent years by new regulatory regimes. Although equality between the sexes in the Nordic countries has increased considerably over the past half-century, differences remain that sometimes have to do with historical gender roles, but which are sometimes the result of new policy decisions. Women bear a larger share of the responsibility for home and family, which in combination with paid employment can lead to stress and periods of sick leave. It also results in many women choosing to work part-time to cope with their greater responsibility for care and the home. Women’s and men’s wages have converged, but differences in aver- age incomes have not decreased. This is partly because women more often work part-time, and partly because capital incomes, which show a skewed distribution in favour of men, have increased in significance. There are also a few remaining discriminatory elements in the legislation, for example in the rules on sick leave in connection with pregnancy. The Commission recommends the following measures to achieve greater gender equality: •Pregnancy should be put on a par with illness as a basis for estab- lishing reduced capacity to work under the sickness insurance scheme. •Pregnancy benefit should be adjusted so that it is paid at the same level as sickness benefit, and entitlement to it should be extended to the estimated due date. •More days of parental benefit should be reserved for each parent, and the majority should be claimed before the child is . Days of parental benefit paid at the minimum level should be individualised. •Municipalities should be required to offer childcare in the eve- nings and at weekends to those who need it. In addition, proposals with impacts on gender equality are presented in other areas, including vocational guidance to counteract gender- based career choices, reformed taxation of closely held companies, and greater provision of information about Swedish society for new arrivals. Regional imbalances are growing, with a concentration of economic activity in the metropolitan regions. This is a strong tendency that is linked to changes in production systems, information technology, and the increased significance of human capital in the economy. The public sector cannot prevent this from happening, nor should it seek to do so, but the trend can be slowed and its consequences limited. •There should be a greater central government presence up and down the country, with the opening of more service centres, stations and so on. Relocation of entire government agencies out of is of dubious value in this perspective. The presence of service functions in people’s everyday lives – social insurance, tax and public employment service offices – is more important for the legitimacy of public services. •The municipal equalisation system needs to be reviewed once again, with a view to preserving the levelling effect required. The most recent adjustment has helped to even out basic conditions, but all the indications are that it is not enough. Differences in growth potential and social factors make it difficult to maintain functioning public services in certain parts of the country. •At the same time, there are limits to what can be achieved with an equalisation system. There needs to be an open-ended discus- sion of additional measures, such as changes in the division of responsibilities between central and local government, asym- metrical solutions and mergers. Proposals with favourable regional effects are also presented in other areas, including a coherent strategy for distance learning, and state- run learning centres to coordinate municipal adult education, Swedish for immigrants and distance-based higher education. The growing inequality of income and wealth in the coun- tries has affected the functioning of the democratic system. American political science research shows that decisions in Congress are increasingly being guided by the interests of the wealthier strata of society. Influence over the political process is being exerted both openly and behind the scenes. Similar tendencies have been seen in , but less research has been done on them. has been criticised by the international anti-corruption body Greco (the Group of States against Corruption) for not having done enough to regulate dealings between political parties and lobby groups of various kinds. Some tightening up of the rules has occurred, but problems remain. In its latest evaluation of , Greco is critical of a lack of adequate transparency in reporting contacts between political decision-makers and lobby groups. Another threat is the development of very large databases con- taining sensitive individual data which, with the help of sophisticated information processing systems, have been used for commercial and political purposes. A third problem is that the nation state as a decision-maker is being challenged by transnational commercial actors with significant financial and legal resources. In these areas, too, there is a danger of the principle of political equality being put out of play. The Commission makes the following proposals: •Rules on party funding and political decision-makers’ contacts with lobby groups should be tightened up, with a view to meeting all of Greco’s requirements. An inquiry should look into a register of lobbyists, of the same kind as is being discussed at the EU level. •A new Study of should be set up, with a focus on the threats to political equality emanating from, among other things, the tendencies indicated above – the growing con- centration of wealth, the development of very large database systems, and the challenges to the nation state. Measures to increase equality – individual sectors a period of several decades, ’s schools have undergone a variety of reforms that have put considerable pressure on the system as a whole, the people working in it and the students – decentralisation of responsibility to municipalities, with insufficient support from central government; new educational approaches; school choice and a free right of establishing new independent schools. Although the changes introduced have brought certain advantages – greater variation and possibly local improvements in performance – these have been outweighed by the disadvantages, in the shape of generally poorer outcomes, a greater spread of out- comes owing to increased sorting and the associated segregation of students, grade inflation, and an element of unreliable providers. In addition, there has been a large influx of students born abroad, who require more support on average to achieve the goals set. Overall, the experience gained calls for a reappraisal of the policies pursued in a number of respects: •Clearer central government responsibility for preschool, com- pulsory and upper secondary education is necessary to reduce regional and socially based variation in the quality of the educa- tion system. Concrete measures to achieve this are a common admissions system for public and private schools, a common policy for differentiation of funding with reference to students’ needs and abilities, and clearer central government responsibility for the education budget. A sectoral grant of the same kind as was introduced in connection with decentralisation to munici- palities should be the principal instrument in giving education providers the resources and incentives they need to work towards equivalent education. This grant should be made conditional on providers achieving the goals adopted at the national level in the education they deliver. •An organisational structure with the emphasis on the county level should be developed to support small and medium-sized municipalities, in particular, in their efforts to promote equiv- alent preschool, compulsory and upper secondary education. The most natural option would be to give the for Education a regionalised structure with a presence in every county, entrusted with safeguarding the supply of skills, quality and equivalence. •Independent schools need to be better integrated into the national education system. The free right of gives too much freedom to potential providers outside the public sector and therefore has to be limited. Given the selection which it makes possible, it can be argued that it conflicts with the requirement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that children attending school should develop respect for civilisations different from their own. Freedom of has also stood in the way of attempts by public agencies to integrate children from different environments. •The provisions of the Education Ordinance and Upper Second- ary School Ordinance allowing municipalities to subsidise in- dependent schools’ premises costs, to enable such schools to establish themselves in their areas, are in contravention of the Local Government Act and probably also of EU rules, and should be repealed immediately. A thoroughgoing inquiry must be conducted into the legal framework for the operations of independent schools, with a view to establishing uniform provi- sions for public and independent schools regarding transparency, conflicts of interest and sanctions. An open-ended inquiry should also be carried out into whether commercial entities can in fact be entrusted with the exercise of public authority. •Resources for supervision should be strengthened, to enable the Swedish Schools Inspectorate to increase its regional presence. •In view of the great importance of the early years of life, com- pulsory preschool education for children from the age of 3 years should be trialled and evaluated. Special initiatives should be put in place for younger children who do not have Swedish as their home language. •The quality of preschool education is important in creating equal conditions for children to grow up in. The proportion of pre- school staff with teacher education is declining, a tendency that must be reversed. •Special support measures should be introduced to enable more students to meet the admission requirements for upper second- ary school, both vocational programmes and those preparing students for higher education. •The teaching profession should be strengthened. Responsibility for educational development should be concentrated in a smaller number of higher education institutions, at the same time as access to education and training for school and preschool teachers should be safeguarded throughout the country, include- ing through greater opportunities for distance learning. •In countries with successful school systems, educational research is strongly knowledge-centred and focused on teaching methods. There should be lessons to be learnt from this for Swedish educational and pedagogical research. Basic pedagogical values should be written into the regulatory framework for school education, with a focus on knowledge and a stronger position for the teacher in teaching that is guided to a considerable degree by students’ prior knowledge (adaptive learning). •Further measures should be introduced to make it more attract- tive to work as a preschool or school teacher in less advantaged areas. •A central body for scrutiny of textbooks and other teaching materials should be reintroduced, possibly combined with a public procurement function. The right of students to good- quality teaching materials and the right of teachers to insist on them should be written into the Education Act. •The level of ambition for vocational guidance in schools should be raised significantly, to create conditions for well-informed individual choices that are able to challenge established gender and class patterns. This could, on the one hand, interest children and young people with low levels of parental education in higher education and, on the other, increase interest in vocational choices that transcend traditional gender roles. interven- tions should be given priority. •Adult education should be substantially expanded to meet the growing need both for basic knowledge – a municipal responsibil- ity – and for vocational knowledge and skills in working life – a responsibility of the . A transparent form of student finance should be created following an inquiry, with a particular focus on individuals who are a long way from the labour market. Central government should take on a greater responsibility for adult education. •An inquiry should be undertaken to look once again at skills accounts of some kind, with the costs shared between employee, employer and the public sector. •A coherent strategy for distance learning should be designed. It should include needs-based educational programmes, funds for the development of digital teaching methods, and support systems and initiatives to broaden recruitment to higher education. •A nationwide network of state-run local learning centres should be developed to coordinate municipal adult education, Swedish for immigrants and distance-based higher education in regions where specialised education cannot be delivered cost-effectively in individual municipalities. •Stricter requirements should be introduced concerning an outreach approach in cultural policy. The policy delivered should be evaluated in relation to this goal, and grants should be made subject to conditions. •Municipal arts schools should be seen as part of the public education system. Central government support conditional on outreach activities being provided should be introduced to ensure a presence in all the country’s municipalities. The world of work is changing rapidly. Demands in terms of educa- tion and training, which were already unusually high on the Swedish labour market, are growing all the time, calling for a labour market policy with, on the one hand, greater flexibility and coordination between the central government, regional and local levels and, on the other, more accurately targeted central government initiatives. At the same time, conditions of employment in parts of the job market have become more insecure, adversely affecting social insurance cover and sometimes causing delay in starting a family. Part-time employment, in some cases at very low hours, and general fixed-term employment, with conditions that are difficult to monitor, are particularly common in certain low-paid occupations. The work environment, which in the last few decades has improved in some respects, has deteriorated in others – including increased stress due to a lack of control over one’s work and increased risks of accidents in sectors with a high proportion of foreign labour. To counteract these negative tendencies, the Commission proposes the following: •The rules on general fixed-term employment have been tightened up, but are judged to be so complex in their present form that they are difficult to apply. A review should be carried out, pos- sibly with a view to limiting this form of employment.