“Tsunami” of red tap at job centres

Case worker Jonna Von Bülow of Næstved Job Centre spends most of her day buried in administrative tasks, while only spending about a quarter of her time counselling the citizens.

“I have less and less time to actually interact with the citizens and it’s very frustrating,” said Bülow.

Up to her elbows in bureaucracy, the case worker has lost the close relationship with her clients that her position requires.

A flood of paperwork

Christian Von Bentzon, manager of Næstved Job Centre, has also noticed the increase in bureaucracy.

“We face veritable floods of paperwork, and it doesn’t just affect the managers, but the regular employees as well, and they are the ones who have to translate the red tape into a language the citizens can understand,” said Bentzon.

He has seen a significant rise in the number of new rules and regulations which the municipalities and therefore the job centres have to implement, despite assurances from both the previous and current government that bureaucracy would be scaled back.

According to Bentzon, the Danish Employment Act has been altered ten times within the last year alone.

Forced to prioritise

The employees at Næstved Job Centre spend the majority of their time on administrative tasks such as documentation, registration, updating case files and bookkeeping.

“The job centres exist to help people move on in life and make a living, but right now we spend more resources on administration than on our clients,” said Bentzon.

Often, the centre is forced to prioritise which tasks to complete first.