Sammanfattning
Summary Innovations in the public welfare sector are risky. The problems are often complex and negative effects can be difficult to foresee. When the innovations are radical, the risks will increase since the unpredictability is even greater. The article gives an account of user-controlled personal assistance as a radical social innovation in a Norwegian context. It raises the question of what happens to an innovation in which the authority relations between the service provider and the user are turned upside down in many ways, when it becomes a part of the public welfare policy. How do the public authorities meet the risks that user-controlled assistance as a radical innovation represents? The empirical basis is a study of public documents from the early 1990s until today and a case study of the implementation of user-controlled personal assistance in 10 municipalities. The overall picture is mixed. On the one side, there are distinct tendencies that the public authorities attempt to restrict the arrangement by “reactive” means. Other developmental traits might contribute to the preservation of the arrangement’s distinctive character, but at the same time, the way user-controlled personal assistance is implemented will decide whether the arrangement’s distinctive features will be secured.