Paper long abstract:

The panacea in governing social work these days seems to be technologies such as case management systems (CMS). They are used to introduce governmental guidelines in social workers' practice. Besides being considered a way to higher efficiency CMS's are also believed to provide better assessments of the clients, heightening accountability and provide better performance - and management information. All of which impose registration tasks on the case worker. The use of the management or performance information has drawn little attention (Moynihan 2008) and a more or less ignored issue is the actual production of it. Even though scholars have discussed measuring problems the details of the actual collecting and working up data have largely been ignored. This paper focus on production of management information in relation to introduction of governmental guidelines.

The RQ is: How do case work registrations become management information?

The study is designed as a cross time study in the disability offices in 11 Danish municipalities. Interviews were conducted with caseworkers, administrative staff and managers in each municipality. Drawing on the concept oligoptikon (Latour 2005) and the perception of the information structures (Star 1999) the analysis addresses the discrepancy of perception of reliability of the management information between the administrative staff, who is producing it, and the managers using it. The administrative staff points to uncertainties in regards to the reports, since the calculations are 'handmade', whereas the managers have high confidence in their management information and don't mind making decision on grounds of them.