Civil Service Organizations in Norway: Organizational Features and Tasks

The paper focuses on civil service organizations in Norway – of particular relevance is central organizational features and structure, task portfolio and how organizational characteristics vary according to type of task. During the last 20–25 years, important processes of change have taken place within the public sector and modified the surrounding conditions for civil service organizations in Norway. The changes within central government are linked to active, conscious reform attempts, and can be said to have focused on: a) changes in the general regulative frameworks encompassing state organizations, b) development of more independent organizational forms within government, and c) principles for how the state is to select the appropriate organizational forms when reorganizing existing organizations or establishing new governmental organizations (Sand 1996: 187). The results have been a moderation in the government’s general regulative frameworks, and a greater variety in governmental organizational forms as well as change in work procedures and steering structures. Administrative reform in recent years has been characterized by a gradual development from an integrated to disintegrated state (Christensen and Lægreid 2004), as well as a transition from multi-purpose to single-purpose organizations. To what extent has role refinement and reform attempts led to a change in civil service organizations’ defining characteristics – in tasks and organizational structures? The aim of this paper is to give a brief introduction to distinct features of Norwegian state organizations at two points in time. Data has been gathered for the years 1989 and 1999. The basis for comparison is thus two «snapshots» in time. This enables us to detect stability or change over time, both in distinct features and in relevant patterns or relations between features, task portfolio and policy area