Summary in English

In 2022-2023, the County Governors conducted a nationwide supervisory audit of the NAV offices’ responsibility to safeguard the needs of children when families apply for financial support. The County Governors examined whether the practices at the NAV offices fulfilled the following requirements:

1. The NAV office adequately maps the needs of children when considering applications for financial support.
2. The NAV office ensures satisfactory assessments and decision-making in connection with applications for financial support for families.
3. Families in receipt of financial support are followed up on as needed.

In total, the County Governors audited 68 NAV offices as part of supervisory activities. Breaches of the law were identified at 58 of the NAV offices. This represents approximately 80% of the audited offices. The County Governors examined three areas and this means that one, two or three breaches of the law could be identified at NAV offices. There were no breaches of the law at ten of the NAV offices.

Mapping

A consistent finding from the audit is that many of the NAV offices simply considered what had been written by parents in applications for financial support without any further mapping of the needs of the children. It was unusual for the NAV offices to take the initiative to map individual and comprehensive needs of individual children in the family unless such needs had been raised by the parents as part of the application. In several of the audits, the County Governors found that much of the responsibility for identifying the needs of children had been assigned to parents, who were not always aware of what services they could apply for. In many of the audits, it was difficult for the County Governors to gain an insight into the scope of mapping meetings and whether the needs of the children were discussed at such meetings as limited records were available. The NAV offices rarely requested the views of children in cases relating to them, directly or via their parents.

Assessment and decision-making

The audit shows that there is a correlation between inadequate mapping and a lack of individual assessment of support needs and benefit amounts. Due to shortcomings in the mapping process, assessments and decisions relating to financial support were made based on inadequate findings. It is difficult to meet the requirement to carry out an assessment in the best interests of the child and for benefits to be based on individual assessments if there is no knowledge of the family in question and their needs. 

Many of the NAV offices did not conduct any specific, individual assessment of support needs but granted benefits purely in line with the rates set out in the indicative guidelines for financial support (Circular A-3/2023 The Norwegian Government’s guidance on financial support for 2024) or in line with local authority rates. Many of the NAV offices provided benefits for specific purposes in addition to the guideline amount if the family applied. The issue here is that not all parents are aware of what services they are entitled to apply for. Most NAV offices excluded child benefit when calculating benefit amounts.

Follow-up

Most NAV offices provided some follow-up to users, often in the form of meetings. Whether they collaborated with other services varied. There were only a few individuals involved in decisions about the service, information, advice and guidance. The County Governors did not examine the content and quality of follow-up. Some of the supervisory findings indicate that users who received support from family coordinators and family teams or participated in research and development projects on the follow-up of families with children received closer follow-up than other users.