Street-level bureaucrat in the introduction programme – client-centred and authority-centred strategies to handle challenging working conditions

Abstract

Departing from the theory of street-level bureaucracy, this article uses a qualitative approach to examine employment officers’ perceptions of working in the Swedish introduction programme for newly arrived migrants. The programme is managed by the Swedish Public Employment Service, and the aim of the study is to illuminate how street-level bureaucrats perceive the prerequisites of implementing integration policy within the introduction programme, and how they respond to these prerequisites. The study shows that the interviewees perceive the working conditions as difficult, characterized by a pronounced tension between organizational demands and migrants’ needs. To manage this dilemma, the street-level bureaucrats apply several coping strategies, and we highlight two broad patterns of practice. Within the client-centred pattern, attempts were made to use discretion to assist the participants in accordance with their needs. Within the authority-centred pattern, the street-level bureaucrats applied a formal and rule-oriented understanding of their assignment, concentrating their efforts on maintaining the functionality of the introduction programme. The most important implication of the study is that it reveals a mismatch between the politically formulated integration policy and the actual needs of the migrants, as perceived by the interviewees. The current integration policy is heavily influenced by a workfare logic, causing the introduction programme to be focussed on providing support connected to labour-market matching. However the programme lacks adequate structures to support its participants to handle e.g. practical, health-related and psychosocial issues that would indirectly facilitate labour-market participation. Thus, this study encourages politicians and policymakers to formulate a more holistic integration policy.

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