Organizational outputs of structural reforms

As a result of the 2007 structural reform in Denmark and the following legislation, the newly formed municipal job centers became responsible for the employment efforts for all categories of unemployed, including people with lasting impairments. To ensure that the job centers had a specialized knowledge base to help this group, each job center was to appoint at least one disability keyperson with the responsibility of distributing knowledge to colleagues. Studies from 2009 and 2012 showed that the implementation of this keyperson differentiated between job centers – both regarding the number of keypersons, the time dedicated to the function and the placement of the function in the job center. Hence, the studies identified a lack of systematization in the efforts to assist unemployed people with lasting impairments and as a consequence, questioned the effect of the function.
The purpose of this study is to examine how the structural reform of 2007 changed the organizational structure of the disability in the public employment system, and how the organizational anchoring of the disability keyperson more than a decade after the reform. We do this by reporting on a survey from 2019 with managers, caseworkers and disability keypersons (N= 453). The survey shows a continuing lack of systematization between job centers. However, the results also indicate a shift in the placement of the keyperson from being predominantly placed in sections with insured unemployed (who are in principle ready to work) to being placed in sections dealing with people on sick leave benefits.
We argue that examining the further use of the disability keyperson is a suitable case for analyzing the complex organizational outputs of political reforms. We believe that an unclear policy formulation and has turned the actual implementation of the keyperson function into a case of organizational contingencies within the job centers rather than deliberate, strategic governance.