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10
Since 1 September 1997, providers receive a standard hourly
allowance for every hour of assistance granted. This allowance is
set by the Government and has been increased every year to date.
For 2014, the Government has set the standard hourly allowance to
SEK 280. The providers do not need to report how the allowance is
spent to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency.
In 2014, Swedish municipalities received approximately SEK 10
billion of Assistance benefit from the Swedish Social Insurance
Agency to carry out personal assistance care for the clients that have
chosen them as their service provider. The costs of the municipalities
to carry out state funded personal assistance care act as a basis for the
government’s yearly decision on the hourly allowance, which the
Assistance benefit consists of.
Objective
This report examines how the municipalities follow up the costs the
assistance benefit is used for, and to what extent they suffer from a
deficit or get a surplus.
Results
This report indicates that most of the municipalities’ accounting and
follow up of the assistance care operations is not detailed. In some
cases, municipalities include costs that should not serve as a basis
when determining a new hourly allowance, costs that function instead
as part of the municipalities’ financial responsibilities. Furthermore,
the report shows that several municipalities report that their costs for
carrying out assistance care are lower than the hourly allowance.
In the previous report ‘The Assistance Market – An Analysis of the
Standard Hourly Allowance’ (2012:12), ISF established that many
private companies carrying out assistance care with Assistance
Benefit are being overcompensated. One conclusion was that the
compensation system of the Assistance Benefit should be reviewed,
inter alia to correspond better to the dissimilar conditions of different
assistance care providers. After the release of the report, the
government appointed the Assistance Benefit Investigation, who
confirmed the statements on overcompensation on a general level
(SOU 2014:9).