DET DIGITALA UTANFÖRSKAPET -En kvalitativ studie om det digitala inkluderingsarbetet inom tre offentliga svenska myndigheter

To obtain the purpose of this study, three following questions were asked:● How are three government agencies working with the transition to the increased amount of digital services?● What effects does digitalization have on the selected authorities?● How do they counteract the risk that some individuals will find it difficult to take advantage of the authorities services at a time when an increased amount of work is being transferred to digital forms?Since digitalization of the public sector first occurred around the year of 2010 in Europe, Sweden has been one of the frontrunners in the development of digitalizing their public sector. Despite Sweden’s good use of digitalization it is clear that a digital divide exists in the northern country within different public authorities. The main purpose of this study is to describe how the Swedish authorities; the Swedish Tax Agency, the Swedish social insurance agency and the Swedish pensions agency include the excluded target groups and individuals who are within the digital divide. This was formed following the increased digitalization of self-service services. The purpose is also to see the similarities and differences between the authorities linked to theories and strategies. The empirical material has been collected from interviews and previous research. The method used in this study is a qualitative and comparative approach to successfully investigate differences between the selected authorities. The main conclusion is that there is a clear digital divide, especially within the older target group. As for the effects of the digitalized public authorities, some of the advantages refer to cost-benefits and a more open, efficient and accessible authorities. Although there are also disadvantages such as risks to unsee/miss important details in individual cases and that the selected authorities indirectly fail their social responsibility: to include all citizens. The authorities combine personal meetings with digital services to minimize the digital divide