Administrating disability: The case of "assistance need" registration in Norwegian health and care governance

Abstract

The use of quantitative measurement is a widespread method in public management to govern at distance. However, this governance may cause conflict, due to the statistics themselves. In Norway, measuring disability for governance purposes has created a controversy about the status of disability in health and care administration. The debated object is a concrete form of Norwegian health and care policy, a registration system called IPLOS. It measures assistance needs based on, among other criteria, functional disability levels. Authorities deem it a necessity for future planning and organization of municipal health and care services. However, organizations of and for the disabled hold that IPLOS communicates a discriminatory view on disability. They have used the controversy to confront authorities’ practical politics of disability, and to promote their own. In this article I explore the controversy surrounding IPLOS. I focus on the relationship between number and person that IPLOS requests, and the organizational and symbolic aspects of number production. Due to the importance such measurement tools are given, we need a further understanding of what the concrete use of these statistics implies both for the counted disabled and for the public authorities’ way of managing disability.

Administrer le handicap : le cas de la mesure du « besoin d’assistance » dans la politique norvégienne du handicap