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As part of the government’s quality reform, the Ministry of the Interior and Social Affairs has launched a project to simplify rules and debureaucratise the social area. The objective is that staff will spend more time on care and service and less on administration.
Simplification
Superfluous and obsolete rules and documentation requirements must be removed. Moreover, indispensable process rules must be simplified to the extent possible. We have to identify the administrative burdens of new, relevant legislation to prevent new rules and requirements from stifling various social service offers.
Staff in institutions and residential care homes, in particular, work under daily requirements that may hinder them in providing good public service. For this reason, debureaucratisation will begin with the experiences of those working directly with patients.
In spring 2008, the Ministry of the Interior and Social Affairs therefore held three theme conferences focusing on the rule simplification and debureaucratisation project. The conferences were divided into the three service areas – disadvantaged children, disabled persons and old-age care – and the participants included local council members and staff from the three areas in the country’s local authorities.
The objective of the theme conferences was to discuss, qualify and expand the three overall catalogues containing the specific simplification proposals that resulted from a joint effort with seven local authorities: Faaborg-Midtfyn, Herning, Høje Taastrup, Jammerbugt, Copenhagen, Næstved and Århus.
The catalogues were produced after a thorough review of local authorities and local service suppliers, public as well as private, to find barriers to efficient task performance.
However, the conferences also gave participants an opportunity to convey their opinions and experience and propose additional simplifications.
“There is ample room for improvement but I want to emphasise that some areas are more important than others”, Ronnie Fløjbo, development, quality and order manager in Hvidovre local authority, explained. He continues: “It is also good that we work together on this, because, despite our differences of opinion, it seems to me that the dialogue is moving towards agreement on the most critical needs for debureaucratisation”.
The Ministry of the Interior and Social Affairs will take the next step in the debureaucratisation project. All the contributions from the catalogues and the conferences will now be processed, further investigations and analyses initiated where necessary – and, similarly, the day-care area will be thoroughly reviewed to find barriers to efficient task performance.
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