Migration Board seeks consultant help

The Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) has failed in its goal of a maximum six month wait for asylum applications and has sought the help of management consultancy McKinsey.

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"This is a rather unique move in the operations of the Swedish state. Some will no doubt applaud the move while others will probably argue that we should have managed the task by ourselves. I am happy to participate in this discussion," explained the board's director-general, Dan Eliasson in a Dagens Nyheter debate article.

The average wait to receive a reply for an asylum application is currently nine months, despite the fact that the Migration Board has worked hard, and with some success, to cut this delay.

But "if the Migration Board had been working in a competitive market then the long wait would have persuaded many of our customers to go somewhere else. This we will change," promised Eliasson.

To engage an external actor to contribute to the reform of core operations is somewhat unique for a Swedish civil service department, Eliasson wrote. The board is confident that costs incurred will be returned several times over in the form of efficiency gains.

The decision has received the backing of the minister for migration and asylum policy, Tobias Billström:

"If this leads to shorter processing times then it is positive. The government's goal is that the wait should not be longer that six months and if it is taking longer at the moment then the board has to work to change this. As this move is part of the work towards achieving that goal then I welcome it," Billström said to news agency TT.

McKinsey is a global consultancy firm and has contracts with many of the world's leading firms and governments, with many non-commercial organisations among its clients.