New Organisational Structure in Nav Labour and Benefits (NAY)

The reorganisation is a response to changes in NAY’s governance and case processing model over time. The introduction of partially automated case processing systems, high production pressure and national portfolio management have meant that cases are increasingly processed across geographically dispersed units, while staff and management have largely remained regionally anchored.

This has created a mismatch between a nationally organised case flow and a regionally organised line structure.

The previous model can thus be understood as a hybrid, in which cases are managed according to one principle and the organisation according to another. Under the reorganisation, responsibility for sickness benefit and unemployment benefit/the wage guarantee scheme is gathered in dedicated benefit units, with clearer managerial responsibility, decision-making authority, and accountability for results and budgets for each benefit.

The intention is that better coordination of professional teams working with the same benefit, clearer lines of decision-making and clearer points of contact between NAY and other parts of Nav will strengthen the capacity for decision-making and change, employees’ ownership of decisions, and collaboration with employee representatives. In the longer term, this is expected to contribute to more accurate and efficient case processing, fewer appeals and shorter processing times for reconsidered decisions.

The evaluation therefore addresses not only whether the model works as intended, but also how it works in practice: what organisational processes it sets in motion, how it is understood and put into use at different levels, and what conditions promote or hinder the intended effects. Previous research on Nav suggests that such effects often become visible at the interfaces between formal organisational structure, actual decision-making practice and operational case processing.

The effects also tend to develop over time rather than appear immediately. A formative evaluation design makes it possible to capture this.