På olika villkor?

On different terms? External collaboration in personal social servicesThe Swedish personal social services (PSS) are often considered as a part of the public sector where the need for collaboration with other local agencies or municipalities is particularly strong. The significance of collaboration is articulated not only in legislation and in policy documents, but is also reflected in the organization of services. This article focuses on collaboration in the PSS and is based on survey data from a cross-sectional sample of second-tier managers in mid-sized Swedish municipalities (n=119). Our aim is to analyse (i) to what extent, and with whom, PSS’s core domains – social assistance (SA), child welfare services (CWS) and substance abuse treatment (SAT) – are collaborating, (ii) the general opinions about collaboration among the respondents, and (iii) whether there are any differences with respect to (i) and (ii) between the core domains. The results show that collaboration, as expected, is an extensive feature in the PSS, particularly collaborative activities that are carried out with individual partners. Further, there are significant differences between the core domains, with collaboration intensity being notably high in CWS. The respondents in CWS also show less enthusiasm for collaboration than those representing SAT and SA.