Overall assessment: Objectionable

It is objectionable that the causes of challenges in the child welfare service have persisted over an extended period, while the measures implemented have yet to address them.

There are several objectionable reasons for the challenges:

• Bufetat’s support system is not sufficiently scaled to fulfil its duty to provide assistance.
• Challenges in co-operation between the different levels of the child welfare service’s administration adversely impact young people and children who require their assistance.
• Insufficient provision across various social welfare services complicates co-operation between the child welfare and other services and results in children not receiving the services they require.

Conclusions

• Resource scarcity is a challenge for many municipal child welfare services.
• The Office for Children, Youth and Family Affairs’ (Bufetat) support system is not sufficiently scaled to fulfil its duty of assistance.
• Co-operation between Bufetat and the child welfare services is challenging when Bufetat does not fulfil its duty of assistance.
• Insufficient provision across various social welfare services complicates co-operation between the child welfare and other services and results in children not receiving the services they require.
• Many child welfare services do not have the sufficient prerequisites to implement changes.

Recommendations

The National Audit Office of Norway recommends that the Ministry of Children and Families

• ensure that Bufetat has an accessible and appropriately scaled support system to provide justifiable placement measures.
• strengthen co-operation with other government ministries to help ensure that regulatory changes affecting vulnerable children are implemented in a way that provides them with a comprehensive and coordinated range of services.

We also recommend that the Ministry follow up to ensure that the municipalities:

• uphold their responsibility for preventive work.
• clarify what preventive work and early intervention entail for the child welfare service and the other social welfare services.
• clarify how preventive work and early intervention shall be managed.

We also recommend that the Ministry

• follow up to ensure that the municipalities fulfil their responsibility to offer individual plans to children in need of long-term and complex services.
• ensure that the use of policy instruments in the event of changes and new requirements in the child welfare service is adapted to the varying prerequisites of different municipalities and child welfare services.
• follow up municipalities that have not yet succeeded in implementing the child welfare reform process and provide assistance to facilitate successful implementation.
• facilitate the participation of child welfare services throughout the country in competence-enhancing measures.
• ensure that smaller child welfare services are affiliated with and receive adequate professional support from larger professional environments, including access to expertise in infrequently encountered case types and the capacity to manage significant fluctuations in case volume.
• ensure that changes in the child welfare service are adequately analysed prior to implementation.
• follow up to ensure that changes in the child welfare service contribute to solving the challenges.