Clients now need to formulate their own visions and strategies, not least to avoid falling into the hands of wooing IT suppliers. How should this be done? The searchlight is focused on creating broader responsibility in the roles of users, citizens, managers and employees within the framework of the social contract. From the citizen's perspective, for example, the individual's environmental responsibility and more personal responsibility for rehabilitation in healthcare have so far been successful.

A necessary paradigm shift that requires action. The government should take the initiative.

That track must now be widened and deepened:

1. The user - from recipient to co-participant
   The success factor in school and care is to motivate and engage the individual to take responsibility while giving them more opportunities to influence their situation. The teacher should be trained in relationship skills to better motivate the student to want to learn and stop struggling. Patients with high risk factors for, or affected by, lifestyle diseases should similarly take responsibility for their health according to their abilities. Start the work in risk groups where a few percent consume a large part of the resources. This involves both building supportive structures (regulations) and developing various individual methods and techniques. In schools, one such structural measure can be a regulatory framework where the teacher's authority is strengthened and clarified. Digital services can be used in various supportive contexts such as methodological evaluation of teaching at school and health monitoring/self-care at home. Continuous relationships are maintained through both physical and digital contacts and meetings. Digitalization can stimulate this. The starting point is an extended social contract based on individual participation, influence and responsibility.
   
2. The citizen - more for the taxpayer's money
   It goes without saying that what creates value and results for the people you serve during the working day must be prioritized. Unfortunately, this is not how everyday life works in practice. In the Swedish public sector, we are comparatively weak in using optimal time for the value-creating personal meeting with the pupil, user or patient. New working methods must be developed here and less prioritized tasks must be scaled back. In the world of education, there are contractual activities that reduce the central role of the personal meeting. Hospital doctors see patients for a fifth of their working time, while doctors in health centers have the opposite relationship with patient overload. Social workers working with vulnerable children, on the other hand, have on average only 10 minutes of face-to-face contact per day, according to a national study.
   
3. The employee - leadership and commitment to participation
   All kinds of legislation to safeguard users' rights has often had the effect of making organizations anxious. The guiding principle is to protect themselves from formal errors rather than aiming for top results. If a performance culture is to be achieved, interest should be taken in how the individual leader/employee/team is valued (the reward system). What is seriously noticed by senior management determines behavior and therefore requires both compassionate and results-oriented leadership where the responsibility for results is not solely financial.

The platform for development work to manage welfare is fundamentally political and should be based on stimulating the individual to become the greatest resource creator. The personal meeting then forms the basis. Through method development, individualization, right use of time, right use of welfare technology and simplified privacy legislation. Today's technocratic digitalization and uninspiring governance models are sorted out or upgraded and linked to a living value base that includes the three perspectives above. A necessary paradigm shift that requires action. The government should take the initiative.

Best wishes,

Bengt Wellermark
Guest writer