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The use of inspection for the governance of human service organisations has increased. However, this type of organisations are hard to control since the tasks they have to perform are often complex and the results are hard to predict. This can be expected to have negative implications for the legitimacy and impact of inspection. The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased knowledge and understanding as to what legitimacy inspection has in social service organisations. In this case study the legitimacy of and adaption to the inspectorate’s demands in two types of inspected social service organisations are investigated: organisations where individuals’ needs for and rights to personal social services are investigated, assessed and decided (IAD), and organisations where treatment interventions are provided (TI). Altogether, 24 politicians, managers and social workers are interviewed. The study shows that the propriety of the inspectors’ descriptions and judgements about the inspected service are questioned less in the IAD than the TI-organisations. Despite this, the results suggest that the social workers in the IAD-organisations are less involved in the development and implementation of the action plans intended to come to terms with the deficiencies identified than do their colleagues in the TI-organisations. The social workers and managers in the IAD-organisations also have less faith in the plans to solve the causes of the deficiencies identified and their mode of adaption is more ritualistic. Abbreviation PSS: Personal social services, IAD: Investigation, assesment and decision making, TI: Treatment interventions, SSA: Social Services Act, NBHW: the National Board of Health and Welfare. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding about the function of control in the inspection process and to increase the knowledge about the legitimacy and impact from inspection on different types of social and welfare services. In the thesis the form and legitimacy of the inspection process are studied in two types of social services in Sweden: a less complex service where the task to investigate and make decisions about social care dominates (IAD), and a more complex service where the task to provide treatment interventions dominates (TI). The data consists of policy documents, inspection reports, casefile documentation, and interviews with inspectors, politicians, managers and social workers. The inspection process is discussed in relation to theories about control systems and legitimacy processes. Inspection is a policy instrument whose standards are derived from legislations and where those subject to the inspection are obliged to meet the demands made by the inspectorates. This form of disciplinary control has been questioned given that its complexity makes it hard to regulate the practice of social work through detailed rules. By including a less disciplinary form of control the instrument’s ability to impact on more complex aspects of social services are expected to increase. The results show a difference in how the inspection process is set up in the two types of services. In the IAD services the process takes the form of a disciplinary control system, whereas the process in TI services initially takes the form of a non-disciplinary system. In spite of the differences observed in the initial stages of the process, the results show that the judgments of inspectors in both types of services are almost exclusively based on information about concrete and detailed aspects. This entails that the judgements of inspectors in both types of services mostly take the form of statements on simple observable and concrete conditions, whereas judgments about more complex aspects are rarely made. The study also shows that although the propriety and relevance of the inspectors’ judgements are questioned more in TI organisations inspections seem to have greater validity and impact on TI than on IAD organisations. The results of the thesis point to two explanations. One explanation is that the costs of dealing with the problems underlying the identified deficiencies are lower for TI than IAD organisations. This in turn leads to greater acceptance of carrying out the proposed measures in TI than in IAD organisations. Another possible explanation is that the potential sanctions are greater for TI than IAD organisations.

Inspection has increasingly been regarded as a safeguard for promoting quality of social services. Little attention has, however, been given to the impact of standards used in inspections, i.e. the written norms, rules and principles used for identification and judgment. The aim of this study is to empirically contribute to an improved understanding of how standards in inspection of social service are designed, and to what extent the design is adjusted in relation to different kind of social services. We employ a systematic and comparative analysis of the content (in terms of input, process, output and outcome aspects) and precision (low, medium and high) of 186 paragraphs derived from legislation and referred to as standards in inspection decisions concerning two types of social work: Investigation, Assessment and Decision-Making (IAD); and Treatment Intervention (TI) in Sweden 2012. Contrary to expectations based on an inspection ideal, our findings show that paragraphs covering outcome aspects are not more commonly referred to as standards in TI than in IAD inspection. The analysis of the precision also indicates that the standards used in inspection of TI are not more adjusted to complex and subjectively experienced aspects than are the standards used in IAD. Our overall results indicate that the policy instrument is primarily adapted to IAD inspection rather than to TI inspection.