The Swedish Social Insurance Agency is criticised for the slow processing of a case concerning a demand for the repayment of maintenance support, and for shortcomings in the processing of a disputed claim

Summary of the decision: In his decision, the Parliamentary Ombudsman makes certain statements about how the Swedish Social Insurance Agency flags priority cases, and about the agency’s automated assessment of whether special reasons exist for not passing on a debt to the Swedish Enforcement Authority for collection.

In the case in question, it emerged that the individual’s son had discontinued his studies, hence the agency assessed it likely that the child was no longer entitled to extended maintenance support. An investigation was launched into the repayment of the maintenance support paid to the child. Despite this, the parent liable for the benefit was to pay maintenance support for the coming month. He objected to this payment demand and repeatedly requested the Swedish Social Insurance Agency to speed up the processing of the repayment case. However, the matter dragged on and after five months the processing of the repayment case had still not begun. The claim against the parent liable for the benefit was then automatically passed on to the Swedish Enforcement Authority for debt collection. Prior to this, an assessment was made of whether there were special reasons not to request collection. This assessment was fully automated and based on determining whether any of the four circumstances described in the Swedish Social Insurance Agency’s legal position on special reasons pursuant to the Debt Recovery Ordinance (1993:1229) existed, which was not the case. Eight and a half months after the individual gave notice that their son had discontinued his studies – after the Swedish Enforcement Authority had recovered the debt and the individual had made a complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen – the Swedish Social Insurance Agency decided that maintenance support had been wrongly paid out and must be repaid.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman is critical of the long processing time and, given the circumstances, of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency’s decision to pass the debt on to the Swedish Enforcement Authority. The Parliamentary Ombudsman also underlines the inappropriateness of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency taking it upon itself to prepare an exhaustive list of circumstances that it considers to constitute special reasons to refrain form requesting debt collection.