The aim of the procurement is to acquire more knowledge on the shielding scheme for recipients of sick pay with a risk of a lot of sickness absence and the insurance scheme to protect small companies from sick pay expenses. The procurement is related to proposals in the Employment Committee (NOU 2021:2 Competence, Activity, and Income Protection - Measures for Increased Employment), which propose, amongst other things, a partial shift in employers' financing responsibilities for long term absences against employers paying less for short term absences.

The model is expected to strengthen the incentives for better follow-up of and adaptations for persons on sick pay, and thereby counteract the dropout rate from working life to long term health benefits. At the same time emphasis must be put on a review of how such a scheme can be organised to counteract possible unfortunate effects for including vulnerable groups and limit the impact on small companies. The aim is to get updated knowledge on the use of the schemes and their effects, as well as review how the schemes should be adapted when altering employers' financing responsibility in accordance with the Employment Committee's proposal.

The assignment period is calculated from when the contract is signed (estimated to be September 2021) to the submission of the final report (estimated to be 30 May 2022).

For a more detailed description of the assignment, see annex 1 of the contract (the Contracting Authority’s description of the assignment).