Omvårdnadsbidraget – vari ligger det nya?

Parents with disabled children in need of care and supervision have from January 2019 and forward the possibility to apply for child nursery allowance instead of child care allowance. The purpose of a reformed support to disabled children is “that the new benefit will be more clear and predictable and that the benefit will be more contemporary compared with the earlier child care allowance.” The reason for having a child nursery allowance instead of child care allowance was that the new benefit would “be according to the rule of law and simple to implement”.

This means that the legislator’s intention of the meaning of rule of law must be investigated. In the preparatory work the words of simplicity, clarity, predictability and timeliness are used. These words will often be used to describe the content of the formal meaning of rule of law. The legislator has “polished up” several prerequisites making them more “timeliness”. Thus, the timeliness is central to decide the legislator’s purpose with the creation of the child nursery allowance. Any differences between the purposes of the child care allowance and the child nursery allowance will be examined.

The rules concerning the child nursery allowance are basically not different from those concerning the child care allowance, why “the new” in the child nursery allowance is not in particular comprehensive. Anyway, the application has been much more restrictive. The great actual changes in the legal system and in the legal application can hardly be claimed. The perception that the child care allowance regulations had been applied too generously and that the need to diminish the costs for this form of allowance had grown in political strength must be the explanation of the changed application of law.