The government has earmarked 730 million kronor this year for a digital leisure card for all young people between the ages of 8 and 16. The card is intended to pay for children's leisure activities.
The government proposes both a general card of 500 kronor per year and child, and a special leisure card of 2,000 kronor distributed in the same way. The higher amount is intended for households that have a slightly worse financial situation with so-called preliminary housing allowance.
On site in Paris
Minister of Sports Jakob Forssmed has been at the Olympic Games in Paris for the past two days and has praised the two gold medalists Armand Duplantis and Sarah Sjöström.
They mean a lot to Sweden, not least as role models for Swedish children and young people and to attract more to club sports, says Forssmed at an event in Paris organized by the Swedish Olympic Committee.
However, the leisure card proposed by the government has an unclear effect, according to the government's own memorandum. It is not certain that the million investment will lead to more children engaging in sports.
You can never be fully sure. But we can't keep doing the same thing we've always done and expect a different result. Instead, we need to take new approaches to get those who are not involved in sports and associations to join, says the minister.
Now we're doing something different than, for example, in Norway, where they give the same amount to everyone. We don't do that, we give four times as much to those who are economically vulnerable. And then we believe it has an effect.
However, the government's memorandum shows that when evaluating trials with similar cards in Norway and Iceland, they have primarily been used by households with good economies.
Several risks exist
Part of the costs for the leisure card goes to purely administrative tasks. Guardians will have to apply for the card in a special e-service at the E-health Agency and the Social Insurance Agency will build a register of approved providers. This is estimated to cost around 250 million kronor annually.
We will do everything we can to press down the administrative costs, says Jakob Forssmed.
Respondents have also pointed out the risk of the card being exploited by criminals.
There are always risks when building this type of system. But we have already changed to minimize that type of risk. There are barriers, for example, that you have to be an established association.
