Swedish law courts’ internal work (2009:20)

The Swedish Government has assigned the Swedish Agency for Public Management to carry out an overall evaluation of the law courts’ internal organisation and forms of work. The purpose is to provide a coherent picture of experience to date of the reforms implemented over the past ten years. The assignment also includes the task of analysing the connections between a court’s internal organisation and its capacity to achieve the aim of conducting high-quality, efficient work.

The Agency for Public Management finds that the pace of change in Swedish courts has been rapid since the year 2000. Most courts have implemented some kind of reform in their internal organisation. A large number of courts have ceased to organise their activities in divisions or sections. Only seven of the 50 district and city courts, and less than a third of the county courts, have retained the traditional division system.

The form of organisation that prevails in the courts is a mixed or hybrid one involving, for the general courts, joint management of criminal cases. Handling of civil cases, on the other hand, is in some sense bound up with the judges concerned. Where the county courts are concerned, this kind of hybrid organisation means that judges and recording clerks can work within particular divisions, while reporting clerks and court secretaries work for several divisions jointly.

The change-over from divisions to larger or hybrid units also means that preparation takes place, to a larger extent, jointly at unit level or for the whole court.

Most courts have some form of specialisation of the adjudication process. Half of the county courts and as many as 40 out of the 50 district and city courts, however, have no plans to achieve greater specialisation. Moreover, neither district and city courts nor county courts value specialisation highly as a factor in attaining efficiency.

To a high degree, the courts delegate functions from the permanent judges to other staff. At the same time, the Agency for Public Management finds that there are relatively large differences among individual courts with respect to the degree of delegation. The Agency interprets this as meaning that scope for further delegation may exist at certain individual courts. In addition, the Agency’s analyses show that the degrees of delegation and efficiency are correlated: district and city courts with a high rate of delegation clear have shorter turnaround times for criminal and civil cases.(1)

The Agency’s analysis also shows that, for the district and city courts, it cannot be demonstrated that one particular form of organisation is more efficient than another. There is, on the other hand, a connection between a district or city court’s size and its efficiency, in terms of turnaround times and unit costs, in so far as smaller courts of this kind have shorter times; but at the same time, these courts’ unit costs are higher. Conversely, it is evident that medium-sized and large district and city courts have longer turnaround times, but cost less.

There also appears to be a correlation between the Employee Satisfaction Index (Nöjd Medarbetar¬Index, NMI) and efficiency. District and city courts where staff members have great confidence in the management tend to have shorter turnaround times. The same applies to district and city courts where the employees are well acquainted with the objectives of the work.

The Agency’s assessment is that the organisational reforms implemented to date, coupled with increased delegation of issues relating to staff matters, work planning and monitoring of performance, have helped to enable the courts to focus on management and control issues. A further facilitating factor is that most courts today have a management group and an administrative director or equivalent. However, in the Agency’s estimation, the focus on management and control issues varies from one court to another.

In the Agency’s view, the organisational reforms that have taken place impose new demands on staff and management alike at the courts. It is therefore important for the management of each court to grasp the consequences of the changes that have been made within its own organisation.

The Agency’s evaluation shows that a committed, involved workforce is a key factor in bringing about efficient work at the courts. A challenge therefore also lies in creating an organisation with a focused and clear leadership — the kind that makes staff feel involved and inspires their confidence in the management of the court.

A general assessment is that reforming the Swedish courts’ internal work and organisation is an extensive process, and that numerous factors may explain why a court does not attain the Government’s objectives for its work. Most of these factors are not covered by the Agency’s evaluation. In the Agency’s view, it is important to point out that changing the way in which courts are divided into organisational units does not suffice to generate efficient activities in the courts. At worst, a reorganisation may mean that a court merely imports old ways of working and routines into a new organisation. Given these considerations it is vital, in the Agency’s view, for the courts to make the most of the potential represented by the organisational reforms carried out to date. One means of doing this is to through further efforts to develop forms of work and routines as well.

1. The Agency’s analyses of connections between the form of organisation, on the one hand, and efficiency and quality on the other cover district and city courts only.