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To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, healthy people in risk groups without the opportunity to work from home receive compensation from the Swedish Social Security Agency. The government and the Riksdag decided on temporary compensation in June.
Försäkringskassan expected 100,000 applications and expanded its organization.
– We have increased our resource by 200 people and it has cost around 40 million SEK. In addition, it was planned to temporarily reorganize 500 people internally, says Ola Kristiansson, manager of the business area of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency.
It also says that development of the electronic service cost several million.
– Building a basic and functional system that will handle 100,000 applications costs SEK 7 million. But the cost of the system does not depend on how many people request the benefit, it is a basic functionality to manage the benefit.
Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD) critical of the government’s handling of risk protection compensation.
Photo: Christine Olsson / TT
Why aren’t more people requesting compensation?
– A reasonable assumption is that the low number of applications has to do with people managing to find solutions together with their respective employers. But we don’t have the complete picture.
You had 100,000 requests. Where did that number come from?
– It comes from our client (note from the editor of the Government Offices). It’s basically about how many people belong to the risk groups and based on that make an estimate of how many will request compensation and will be entitled to it, says Ola Kristiansson and continues:
– It is very difficult to make these calculations since we lack information on the conditions of each individual in their employment situation. If we could have made a better calculation, we would have done it within the Swedish Social Security Agency, but we cannot because we lack such data.
read more: Few have requested compensation for risk groups
President of the Social Affairs Commission Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD) criticizes how the government has managed to protect groups at risk.
– I said there were not so many who would request compensation. That’s one of the reasons it took them so long, they thought it was too big and too much, she says.
– It could have been double, 5,000-10,000, if it had not been as long as August 24 before it was possible to request compensation.
What do you say about the fact that work with the risk protection compensation has cost so far SEK 47 million at the same time that so few have applied for the help?
– An expensive and really expensive system has been created in relation to the number of people who have applied for compensation. This is nothing more than an understatement by the government in the way it has handled the Riksdag’s decision to establish compensation for risk groups.
The Minister of Social Security, Ardalan Shekarabi (S), does not want to appear for an interview, but responds to DN’s questions in writing.
“Together with the Riksdag, we have always worked to get compensation as soon as possible, but as we said earlier, this new compensation should be seen as a completely new social security benefit, which normally takes years to implement.”
What do you say about the cost of nearly SEK 50 million when so few have applied for compensation?
“The introduction of compensation, of course, took off to handle a large number of applications in a short time, the government and the Riksdag agreed. If the result does not correspond to the forecast, the authority obviously has the opportunity to be flexible and redirect resources as needed in the business, ”writes Ardalan Shekarabi.
read more: Compensation to risk groups is further delayed
