To Örebro University

The aim of this study was to explore evaluation in the Swedish Public Employment Service, with particular focus on how the use of evaluations looks like. The study consists of two studies. The first one is an analysis of the Employment Service’s all policy documents that describe or mention evaluation as well as an interview-study with all the management staff in one of the Employment Service’s local labor market units. The second study is a comparative study with analysis of the Employment Service’s entire evaluation production for the years 2010 and 2015. The results show that the Swedish Public Employment Service is a hierarchically controlled governmental organization with routines for effective communication of management's messages to all levels in the organization. Employment Service's evaluation is governed and implemented centrally and communicated from the top, down through the organization. Evaluations are mainly used as a routine for checking and reporting, as well as accounting to the government. Managers on a middle and local level find that much of the evaluation is about control, and that control is not adapted to needs of the everyday business on the local level. Evaluation activities are extensive. Evaluations seems to have become an end in itself, used in legitimizing purposes rather than as a tool for developing of the service to the clients. Half of the evaluations that the Employment Service carried out by their own, is regular evaluations. Almost all evaluations carried out by the European Social Fund Council in Sweden and “Samordningsförbund” (associations for coordination of social projects) are single occasion-evaluations. Legitimizing dominates the use of evaluation, both 2010 and 2015 in evaluating production. Evaluation for improving of the service to the clients is mentioned only in a small number of policy documents. Evaluations that includes the client’s perspective as well as proposals for change occurs to a limited extent in both 2010 and 2015. The Organization of the Employment Service's evaluation activities are heavily influenced by New Public Management's management philosophy.