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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 ; acceptedVersion ; © 2008 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of Association ALTER. This is the authors' accepted manuscript to the article.

PurposeThis study aims to explore the development in Norway from an awareness of the need for numbers to govern in the 70s to a statistical information system launched in 2006, called IPLOS, to respond to this need. The article seeks to discuss how this system was developed, what the Norwegian authorities attempted to achieve with the development, which goals they desired and how the statistics were intended to contribute to reach them.Design/methodology/approachThis study has a multisite approach inspired by situational analysis, and draws on "governing by numbers" among other theoretical debates. It is based on original data (qualitative interviews) and secondary sources (policy and statistics development documents). The sources represent both top down and bottom up perspectives: authorities, municipalities, expertise involved in the development and disability activists.FindingsThe statistics development expresses three challenges in Norwegian health and care service policy: planning and governance, the growing complexity of the welfare state and changing welfare ideologies.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to a Norwegian context and does not provide generalized conclusions about the sociohistorical context for developing statistics as technologies for governance purposes.Originality/valueStatistics and numbers for governance purposes are most often talked about as ready‐made facts. This study explores a quantifying tool and its numbers in the making, with a methodological approach that extends the governing by numbers tradition.

Innovations create new possibilities for the welfare state. Digital technologies, however, can create a range of surprising and unintended effects. Lost in Digital Translations: Studies of Digital Resistance and Accommodation to the Welfare State in Practice is an exploration of what happens when digital technologies intersect with welfare state practices.

This book seeks to develop a creative critique of digital welfare. Digitalising welfare runs the risk of undermining or suppressing knowledge dimensions that are central in the distribution of welfare – in short, knowledge can be 'lost in digital translation'. The universal welfare state is intended for all citizens. By sensitizing us to what is lost in digital translation, we are made aware of some of the exclusionary mechanisms that impact our digital society.

In this anthology a group of researchers investigate how digitalisation influences the most ambitious welfare state in the world: Norway. Given Norway's extensive welfare system, the process of digitalisation has had a profound impact. Digital technologies are used to enhance cooperation and coordination between health trusts and municipalities, standardizing communication between frontline workers and citizens, and even altering the architectural design of public buildings, all of which influences the quality of welfare services. At the same time, patient security is endangered, vulnerable groups experience even more exclusion from society, and for others, the quality of welfare deteriorates.