A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Configuring Casework: The Adoption of Robotic Process Automation in the Administration of Swedish Social Assistance

  2025. Nora Germundsson.

  Thesis (Doc)

  Social assistance (SA) serves as the ultimate safety net within the Swedish welfare system, and is intended to ensure that the most economically vulnerable individuals maintain a reasonable standard of living. Unlike other social insurance benefits, SA is administered by the municipal Personal Social Services (PSS), where caseworkers exercise considerable discretion in assessing applicants’ individual circumstances when determining eligibility. In an effort to streamline the administration of SA, an increasing number of Swedish municipalities have implemented Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate the processing of social assistance applications. Simply put, RPA consists of software robots designed to mimic caseworkers’ actions by interacting with the surface level of pre-existing digital case management systems using simple if-then rules.

  This dissertation comprises four studies that examine and analyze the adoption of RPA in SA casework. Empirically, the research draws on national policy documents as well as qualitative and quantitative data from four medium-sized Swedish municipalities. The dissertation employs a sociotechnical perspective, viewing technologies as active and socially embedded processes. Digital technologies are understood as sociotechnical artifacts that both influence and are influenced by dominant discourses and the social contexts in which they are created and used. The PSS are conceptualized as street-level bureaucracies, where policy is enacted through the sociomaterial practices of caseworkers who are delegated discretionary space based on their ability to make reasoned judgments. The concept of configuration is employed to analyze how the adoption of RPA becomes entangled with SA casework as it integrates with localized practices.

  The four studies demonstrate how the adoption of RPA reinforces a reductive understanding of SA casework. The dissertation also suggests that the political mandate of SA casework to ensure a reasonable standard of living for all municipal inhabitants through financial transfers is discursively constructed as a wholly rule-based and administrative procedure of “finding out” clients’ eligibility. With RPA adoption based on this understanding, caseworkers’ exercise of judgment to assess individual situations is effectively reframed as a matter of simple reckoning, rendering it suitable for delegation to an automated function reliant on basic if-then rules. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the challenges that RPA is intended to address stem from the very political frameworks that have contributed to shaping the present circumstances.

  Ultimately, the dissertation emphasizes the importance of critically reflecting on the political promises and imagined visions of digitalization-driven efficiency, rather than accepting them at face value. A more nuanced understanding of the practical realities of SA casework is essential, particularly in light of the growing emphasis on employing AI technologies in the delivery of social services.

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• Promoting the digital future: the construction of digital automation in Swedish policy discourse on social assistance

  2022. Nora Germundsson. Critical Policy Studies

  Article

  This article focuses the policy discourse that Swedish municipal personal social services (PSS) must engage with when implementing automated decision-support systems; how these tools are conceptualized in the context of social work and what outcomes they are expected to yield in the PSS organizations. Applying an adapted version of Bacchi’s WPR framework, results indicate that the three main policy actors directing the Swedish PSS portray a future where the capacity of the welfare state is threatened, thus suggesting digital automation as an objective and politically neutral tool for saving the PSS from this worrisome prospective. This article, however, argues that by uncritically promoting a particular form of digital automation within the PSS, the policy discourse risks overlooking the characteristics of digital technologies, thus both disregarding its consequences and amplifying the neoliberal ideals that award private enterprise the role of the main supplier of public welfare.

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• Configuring Social Assistance: Conceptualizations and Implications of the Adoption of Robotic Process Automation in the Swedish Personal Social Services

  2024. Nora Germundsson. European Journal of Social Work, 1-13

  Article

  Many European countries’ public organisations have turned to digital automation as a strategy to enhance the efficiency of their service delivery. One example of this is the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the provision of Social Assistance (SA) in Sweden. Swedish SA is a means-tested subsidy intended as a last resort for the economically most vulnerable persons, and caseworkers exercise a high degree of discretion when deciding on clients’ eligibility for the benefit. Based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders at the national and local levels, this study explores how these actors conceptualise and rationalise the adoption of RPA in the SA context and discusses how this relates to the mutual configuration of RPA and SA. The results show that RPA is framed as a simple technology to alleviate caseworkers’ administrative workload so that they can instead focus on supporting clients towards self-sufficiency. However, local actors describe RPA adoption as a challenging process with modest outcomes. As such, the study suggests that stakeholders’ simplified conceptualisation of RPA allows them to shift responsibility for its practical adoption to local PSS organisations, which ultimately pushes the PSS organisations towards configuring their SA casework processes around the limited capabilities of the technology.

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• Automating social assistance: Exploring the use of robotic process automation in the Swedish personal social services

  2024. Nora Germundsson, Hugo Stranz. International Journal of Social Welfare 33 (3), 647-658

  Article

  Many European countries employ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the administration of public benefits. However, there is limited understanding of how RPA is applied at the client level. This article investigates the utilization and impact of RPA use on social assistance (SA) distribution in Sweden, drawing on a sample of 800 SA applications in four Swedish municipalities. The results show that RPA use correlates with applicants' country of birth, age and duration of SA receipt. Additionally, RPA implementation coincides with less generous decisions, disproportionately affecting financially vulnerable groups. Rather than a correlation between generosity and the technology itself, the results suggest a conflict between the reorganisation of SA administration during RPA implementation and the principle of individualized judgments inherent in SA casework. Hence, public organisations are encouraged to ensure that their adoption of RPA neither exacerbates unequal access to services nor compromises professional discretion in favour of efficiency-driven measures.

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• Reducing administration? Examining the alignment of robotic process automation and social assistance in Swedish Personal Social Services

  2024. Nora Germundsson, Hugo Stranz, Åke Bergmark. Nordic Social Work Research, 1-14

  Article

  In line with the global trend towards digitalization, digital automation has become a politically endorsed strategy to enhance efficiency and transparency in public service delivery. One such example is the adoption of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the context of social assistance (SA) in Sweden. While SA is a municipally organized means-tested subsidy for the most financially vulnerable, RPA functions as highly structured software executing administrative tasks based on predetermined rules. Employing a sociomaterial perspective, this article analyses group interviews conducted in four Swedish municipalities, to explore if and how RPA adoption configures the dynamics of SA casework administration and practice. Findings suggest that RPA adoption does not inherently lead to expected all-encompassing enhancements of faster and fairer eligibility determinations as well as a more client-centric approach in SA casework. Instead, the instrumentalist approach of leveraging digital tools to achieve specific outcomes, combined with the task delineation required by RPA, appears incongruent with the nature of SA casework practice. As caseworkers attest to organizational adjustments and a more instrumental approach towards clients’ situations alongside RPA adoption, this study underscores the inadequacy of the rationalist notion of segmenting SA casework in order to achieve efficiency in casework that, by law, should be based on individual judgements by professional caseworkers.

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• Automatisering av ekonomiskt bistånd: en studie av förutsättningar och utfall på klientnivå

  2024. Hugo Stranz (et al.). Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift 31 (1), 7-27

  Article

  In recent years, the use of digital support systems in the administration of Swedish social assistance (SA) has become increasingly widespread. Current surveys show that around 10 percent of Swedish municipalities make use of so-called Robot Process Automation (RPA) in their everyday practice. As key arguments for the use of RPA-support, aspects such as unburdening employees of pure administrative tasks, as well as increased transparency and enhanced legal certainty for applicants, are often highlighted.

  The present paper presents results from a larger research project addressing the practical use of RPA-support in Swedish Personal Social Services. The analyses are based on cross-sectional quantitative data from 800 cases collected in four medium-sized Swedish municipalities. Half of the cases reflect assessment outcomes before RPA-support was implemented; the other half show outcomes after implementation. The paper aims, first, to describe the character and contents of the different RPA-tools utilised in municipalities. Second, the paper aims to describe and analyse the outcomes of SA decisions before and after the implementation of RPA-support, respectively.

  Our main findings are as follows: (a) while RPA can partially alleviate the administrative burden on social workers, human involvement remains essential for individual assessments; (b) even though the use of RPA-support does not establish any significant relation to the outcomes of SA eligibility assessments, the assessments are far less generous after the implementation of RPA than before; and (c) the changes in generosity are particularly notable with regard to applications outside of the National Benefit Standard, which is a strong predictor for the rejection of applications.

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• Ringar på vattnet

  2017. Åke Bergmark (et al.). Socionomen (1), 34-48

  Article

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Show all publications by Nora Germundsson at Stockholm University