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Sweden is one of the countries which does not have a Public Accounts Committee. Since the Swedish National Audit Office was formed in 2003, two non-PAC models for the channelling of audits to Parliament have been tested. This chapter discusses the Swedish experience from these. It suggests that one reason why Sweden has avoided forming a PAC is the wish to preserve a political culture focused on collaboration and pragmatic improvement, rather than confrontation and accountability debates. The current model is successful in this regard. Findings emphasise the importance of a fit between political culture and systems for accountability.

Decades of reforms focused on the deregulation of markets, have lead to disaggregation, competition and weakened political control. Today, the Western world is struggling to develop models to improve coordination: Whole-of-Government (WG) reforms are implemented. These reforms are focused in particular on the wicked issues that tend to appear in the boundaries between public and private, between policy areas and between politico-administrative levels. We know little on how these initiatives are organized or how they compare. This paper suggests a framework to understand different types of WG models, adopting a governance perspective. It builds on the case of clinical medical research in Sweden. This area serves as an outstanding example of a complex multi-level network environment, including stakeholders such as ministries, universities, regional councils, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry. Based on document studies from this area, the paper outlines a framework with four WG models: Contract, oversight agency, central agency and shared local units. The framework can be used to organize future research in this area.

Whistle-blowing can serve as a powerful mechanism helping policy-makers and other stakeholders recognize ethical misconduct and other types of wrongdoing in autonomous public agencies. This mechanism is of particular importance in major public sector reforms, such as agency mergers, when it may be difficult to secure continuity in the quality of organizational processes. Yet, we know little of what opportunities for whistle-blowing characterize these reforms, as the feedback dimension of the policy process has been relatively neglected. This paper explores what opportunities for whistle-blowing are provided to physicians in mergers of autonomous public hospitals. In the health care sector, the professional ethics of physicians may provide strong incentives for whistle-blowing, aiming to preserve patient interest. A survey was distributed to 663 physicians and 12 managers at a Swedish hospital, which two years earlier had undergone a merger. Today, this is one of the largest hospitals in Europe. The response rate was 54 per cent and 7 out of 12 managers. Results reveal that managers and physicians had the opposite perceptions of merger outcome – 80 per cent of physicians considered it a failure, whereas most (5 out of 6 responding) managers considered it successful. Among physicians, 64 per cent stated that employees could not express objections to the hospital management without risking sanctions, whereas most managers (5 out of 7) believed that they could. Finally, responses reveal that physicians (93 per cent) and managers (7 out of 7) agree that there is not a working dialogue between professionals and policy-makers. In this specific merger, opportunities for whistle-blowing were limited. Some possible explanations are outlined. The lack of transparency is a democratic problem, aggravated by the major stakes in hospital mergers.

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) constitute important democratic institutions, providing citizens with an independent analysis on how the Governmental Offices and the central public administration function. This paper reports on findings from a survey, submitted to all performance auditors at the Swedish SAI, on 3 May, 2011. The response rate was 70 per cent (65 out of 93 respondents). The survey covered areas such as SAI performance, organisational culture, organisation design, leadership and audit approach. Although confidence in the three Auditors-General has increased considerably since new appointees have replaced these posts, serious problems are pointed out in other areas. Specifically, three areas stand out: SAI performance, SAI organisation and finally SAI compliance with international standards as well as with the Swedish Constitution. Only 3 out of 62 respondents believe that the number of managers at the Swedish SAI is reasonable and 5 out of 65 respondents believe that the organisation design works well. Only 23.8 per cent of respondents believe that the SAI itself meets the standards that it requires other agencies to meet and 26.7 per cent of respondents believe that the costs for the Swedish SAI are reasonable.

In National Audit Offices (NAOs), impact is often used as a measure of success, serving to build legitimacy. When aiming to maximize impact, the media tends to play an important role. Based on empirical observations from the Swedish NAO, this paper explores how the role of the media for a NAO can be understood, and how this may affect independence. It is suggested that impact can be understood either as the media coverage of an audit (media impact), or the measures that an audit result in (measure impact). Two interpretations of the media are discussed: (i) Media as an information channel, and (ii) media as a means of bringing pressure to bear among audit objects and members of Parliament. In the Swedish NAO, the Auditor-Generals strived to maximize media impact, in order to gain measure impact, partly because a response to audits was not compulsory. Auditors in the Swedish NAO requested that the media should be understood rather as an information channel, and that impact should not be seen as an important measure, in accordance with the Constitutional school. Implications for independence are discussed. In the Swedish NAO, auditors witnessed about an excessive focus on problems and sensational conclusions, and on producing non-contestable results, following a strong media orientation. It is concluded that the price of media impact is independence, in the Swedish case.

In the private as well as the public sectors, mergers are common events. Yet, research on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is based primarily on studies from the private sector, and it is assumed that conclusions from this context are valid for any context. In this article, the characteristics of resistance in public sector mergers is explored. Resistance is a central aspect in the M&A literature, as well as in the broader literature on organizational change. Observations from two case studies of mergers in the central public administration in Sweden – the Swedish National Audit Office and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency – are reported. Five propositions are established. For instance, it is suggested that vertical resistance tends to become more extensive in public mergers than in mergers in the private sector. This vertical resistance occurs between management and employees. It can be explained partly by different standpoints as concerns the employee's right to influence managerial decisions. This is an argument that can be legitimized by the employee by referring to whistle-blowing ethics and the role as a guardian of democracy.

Observations from three case studies of public sector reforms are reported. These observations concern managerial attitudes to personnel resistance, and they reveal how management talks of resistance either as an emotional reaction or as a personality trait with certain employees. Based on these assumptions it is considered legitimate to disregard employee objections. Personnel were invited to the managerial decision making process, but this functioned rather as therapy than as a channel for actual employee influence. Findings are problematic, because they challenge the ethics of the public official in modern democracies and hinder attempts at whistle-blowing. A framework distinguishing between four interpretations of resistance and corresponding decision making strategies is suggested. The framework can be used to understand and discuss different interpretations of resistance and choices pertaining to employee influence in the decision making process. It also highlights important differences as concerns how resistance tends to be understood in change management theory, as compared to how it must be understood in order to allow whistle-blowing in public sector reform.

The Auditors-General can have a profound impact on the work of the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI), in terms of the quality, autonomy and efficiency of audit work. In Sweden, this recruitment is prepared by the Committee on the Constitution, before the final decision is made by Parliament. The appointment is, however, shrouded in mystery and not even candidate profile requirements are openly advertised. This lack of transparency is problematic, since the SAI is positioned at the heart of the democratic accountability process. Because Sweden has a model with ten parallel Auditors-General, there have been ten Auditors-General over the period 2003-2015. This article compares their profiles and outlines five explanations. Results show that their professional and academic qualifications have increased, whereas their experience from hands-on audit work has decreased. Results also indicate that most of the Auditors-General have been recruited from a rather narrow circle of people around the Government Offices. Five explanations are outlined. In particular, we argue that the recruitments can be understood as an expression for a wish to increase the standing of the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO) and the quality of its work. This follows partly from an increasing awareness of the extensive powers at the hands of the Auditors-General in the Swedish model.

With New Public Management came the idea that public organizations should be led by professional managers, rather than by professionals. This has been referred to as new managerialism. This article explores how new managerialism may affect professional autonomy in a public organization that enjoys a high – and constitutionally protected – degree of organizational autonomy. A framework distinguishing between organizational and occupational professionalism is adopted, in a 10-year case study of the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO). The study shows how the autonomy of professionals at the SNAO was highly restricted, while management control systems were continuously expanded. At the same time, SNAO performance has been reduced. For example, the SNAO has been criticized for its high overhead costs. The study presented in this article, shows the complex interplay between professionalism, new managerialism, and organizational performance. Based on the findings from this study, the article maintains that it is equally important to consider how autonomy is distributedwithinagencies, as it is to consider how autonomy is distributed between the political sphere and the administration, when trying to explain organizational performance.