Ett verktyg för rationalisering av offentlig sektor skapas

Besparingsberedningen 1940–1943

Abstract

The creation of a tool for public sector rationalisation: The Savings Commission, 1940–1943

It is often claimed that, at the end of the 1970s, there was a shift in the management of the Swedish public sector towards economisation, marketisation, or ‘company-ization’ (NPM). It is usually explained as a colonisation of the public sector by a different kind of rationality or logic. This article shows how the Savings Commission, active from 1940 to 1943, tried to reduce the budget deficits during the Second World War through the rationalisation of the civil service. The purpose here is to analyse the underlying rationality and compare it with later attempts, especially the introduction of programme budgeting in the 1960s. The Savings Commission applied an instrumental rationality, which was also a central part of programme budgeting and NPM. However, between the three rationalisation attempts, strategies and methods differed. This suggests that rationalisation is an essential part of the Swedish capitalist welfare state.