Purpose: New Public Management (NPM) has increased fragmentation in municipal health and social care organizations. In response, post-NPM reforms aim to enhance integration through service integration. Integration of municipal services is important for people with complex health and social challenges, such as concurrent substance abuse and mental health problems. This article explores the conditions for service integration in municipal health and social services by studying how public management values influence organizational and financial structures and professional practices.Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study with three Norwegian municipalities as case organizations. The study draws on observations of interprofessional and interagency meetings and in-depth interviews with professionals and managers. The empirical field is municipal services for people with concurrent substance abuse and mental health challenges. The data were analyzed both inductively and deductively.Findings: The study reveals that opportunities to assess, allocate and deliver integrated services were limited due to organizational and financial structures as the most important aim was to meet the financial goals. The authors also find that economic and frugal values in NPM doctrines impede service integration. Municipalities with integrative values in organizational and financial structures and in professional approaches have greater opportunities to succeed in integrating services.Originality/value: Applying a public management value perspective, this study finds that the values on which organizational and financial structures and professional practices are based are decisive in enabling and constraining service integration.

The paper discusses the implementation of a digital workspace to facilitate collaboration in health and social services for vulnerable children and adolescents in eight Norwegian municipalities. The purpose of the workspace is to enhance collaboration independent of space and time. Collaborating services are schools, kindergartens, school health services, educational services and child welfare services. The data analysed are from semi-structured interviews with project leaders in primary care, responses of primary care professionals to open questions in a survey, and results from two questions in three subsequent surveys. Project leaders held great expectations of increased collaboration. Variations were found regarding how far the implementation of a new workspace precluded previous methods of collaboration and whether retaining a familiar workspace necessitated strengthening resources to negotiate using the workspace. Organisational and professional cultures hindered the implementation of the workspace. Interrelated barriers to collaboration were found at the professional, organisational and systemic levels. Some professionals could adapt the workspace to their existing tasks while others could not. Primary care providers need to strengthen their organisations while implementing the workspace. Concerted action at national and municipal level is needed to successfully implement digital tools.

Child poverty is an increasing challenge for Norwegian society and its municipalities. Policies to reduce it include housing as one particularly important health determinant. The capability approach allows us to focus on determinants for health. Methods were triangulated and literature and document studies, interviews and participating observations were part of the data-gathering process. Thematic analyses were used to analyse data. Children and adults view housing as important. Housing determines families’ possibilities of consuming other goods and choosing what functionings they will convert their resources into. Municipalities can change the course of development by engaging with the Norwegian Government Housing Bank and implementing instruments such as social housing, housing allowances and starter loans giving families the possibility to become homeowners. Housing determines intra- as well as inter-generational life chances. Housing is a corrosive functioning if children live in families that have low-quality housing or high housing costs. Housing is a positive functioning for children if families own their housing. Housing is defined as a market good and a welfare asset. Policies enable some families to buy their own housing, whereas the number of poor children still increases.

Dette prosjektet studerte hvilken nasjonal politikk de nordiske land utvikler for å påvirke helsens determinanter. Fokus på helsens determinanter krever bevissthet om strukturelle betingelser for god helse. Prosjektet hadde en kvalitativ tilnærming, data besto av dokumenter og intervjuer. Vi undersøkte om landene hadde en helhetlig tilnærming, om politikken var et ansvar for alle sektorer og om den var forpliktende. Sosiale ulikheter kan kalles et innfløkt (wicked) problem, der det finnes politiske konflikter som bidrar til problemer med å gjennomføre politikk som ivaretar determinant perspektivet. Alle landene har formulert politiske målsetninger om å utjevne sosiale helseforskjeller, men tiltak finnes mest på lokalt nivå og fokuserer mest på levevaner. De bredere helsedeterminantene blir ofte ikke anerkjent og innfløkte problemer blir omdefinert til tamme problemer, som er mer ukontroversielle og lettere å implementere.

In Norway, aftercare for young people aged 18–25 can be provided by the Child Welfare Service, Social Services, or both. We ask how services are regulated, implemented at the municipal level, and whether young people co-produce the services they receive. The approaches of co-production, governance, institutional logic, and coordination lay the foundation for the analyses of data from a document study and interviews carried out with professionals and leaders in one municipality. The findings show that governance mechanisms and institutional logic are parallel and competing. Sectorization is prominent, and overlapping jurisdictions are not avoided in the dominant regime combining public administration and market logic. The market logic is strong, favouring cost-benefit considerations, making the responsibility for young people volatile. The family logic is present at the professional level in both services; nevertheless, it must be worked with to be fully aligned with the professional and the community logic, and it is not dominant. The conclusions are that it is an open question as to whether young people co-produce the services they receive, and that the revised Child Welfare Act can strengthen the alignment of family, professional, and community logic.