Evaluation of the National Labour and Welfare Administration Reform (EVANAV)

The most fundamental goal of the evaluation is to determine whether the NAV reform has achieved its paramount objectives:

• Welfare-to-work: to get more people in the labour force and active, and fewer people on benefits
• User-centrism: to provide services that are easier for users and better suited to their needs
• Efficiency improvement: to engage in comprehensive and effective administration of labour and welfare

The evaluation is dual-pronged, encompassing a research-based evaluation of its results/effects relative to its objectives and an evaluation of the process per se, not least to document how the reform has been conducted. Parallel to this, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organisation and the municipalities will make plans for systematic exchanges of experience and lessons learned, particularly those related to organisation and the development of tools and working methods at the common local NAV offices.

The NAV reform involves a major administrative reorganisation as well as social policy reform. The evaluation will focus on the NAV reform as an administrative reform and on its contribution to achieving the paramount objectives. It is not the intention of this evaluation to shed light unilaterally on the use of the various instruments (services, measures and schemes) available for the administration of labour and welfare without relating that use to the paramount objectives and key aspects of the reform. However, no sharp distinction will be made between administrative policy and social policy effects.

The evaluation will cover four performance areas:

• Documentation: a systematic and specific list of what has been and is being done by different players during the planning and implementation phases.
• Correction: enables NAV to benefit from experience and learn lessons along the way.
• Insight into organisational integration and how the various elements affect goal achievement.
• Long-term knowledge development

Conducted like a large-scale project, the evaluation will be headed by Associate Professor Anne Lise Fimreite of the Rokkan Centre at the University of Bergen.