IDA BRING LØBERG

TOPIC:
Digital service provision - Easier access for citizens and more time for frontline work?

BIO

Ida Bring Løberg is a researcher at the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV). She researches digital service provision, specializing in street-level bureaucracies. Her research interests include demand for public services, computer mediated interaction between frontline workers and clients, workers' assessment of digital information, and emotions in a digital context. She is currently writing a book on digital frontline work, exploring how street-level structures operate in a digital context. Before doing her PhD, she worked in NAV's frontline.

Løberg and Egeland won the ESWRA doctoral award 2023 for their research article 'You get a completely different feeling' - an empirical exploration of emotions and their functions in digital frontline work.

ABSTRACT

Digital service provision is supposed to provide citizens with easier access to services and even free up time for frontline workers to help vulnerable citizens. But is this the case?

Just service provision presupposes that citizens can claim their rights. This makes their access to public services a democratic value, which frontline workers seek to uphold. In fact, workers are instrumental in this process, from informing citizens about their rights to providing the actual service. While digital service provision is supposed to ease this process, technologies can also complicate it.

Drawing on experiences from the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (Nav), this presentation addresses how digital service provision shapes citizens' access to labor and welfare services, and whether it provides workers with more time to follow them up.