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Agency how the allowance is spent. Any surplus, therefore, becomes
a profit. The cost of the allowance amounted to SEK 5.2 billion in
1998 and in 2011 it had increased by approximately 470 per cent to
SEK 24.3 billion.
Since the introduction of the standard hourly allowance, and up until
2011, the private companies’ share of the market of personal care
assistance has increased from 25 per cent to 45 per cent.
Objectives
The main objective of this review is to study whether the model for
the standard hourly allowance, disbursed by the Swedish Social
Insurance Agency, meets its intended purpose. In order to assess this,
the terms applying to municipalities as providers of personal care
assistance have been compared with the terms applying to private
providers.
The ISF has, primarily, reviewed the financial conditions applying to
private companies on the personal care assistance market.
Findings
This review shows that the standard hourly allowance is high
compared to the actual costs incurred by the private companies for
carrying out personal care assistance. According to ISF’s
calculations, the standard hourly allowance for 2012 allows for a
margin of SEK 54 per hour for the private personal care assistance
companies. Considering that these companies occupy 45 per cent of
the personal care assistance market, which touches upon almost 100
million assistance hours, there is overcompensation of at least SEK
2.5 billion. An aggregated review of 20 private companies confirms
that the standard hourly allowance is high, in comparison with the
personal care assistance companies’ costs.
Furthermore the review shows that the costs of providing personal
care assistance are higher for municipalities than for private
companies. Certain municipalities are unable to provide personal care
assistance within the given limits. As a result, several municipalities
do no longer provide personal care assistance and instead refer to
private companies.
