Whistleblowing in municipalities – trends and challenges

Lantero currently partners with around 80 of Sweden’s municipalities. Through this unique insight, we see a clear development: activity within municipal whistleblowing channels is increasing. But what is actually driving this development, how are the incoming cases best managed, and what new administrative challenges are waiting around the corner? We summarize some of the key insights based on a conversation with whistleblowing expert Andreas Wahlström.

Increased Awareness and Turbulent Periods

The fact that more reports are being submitted is primarily due to two things: increased trust and better information. Employees are becoming increasingly aware that these channels exist and trust that they are secure. However, this is not an entirely universal trend; activity varies greatly from one municipality to another.

We see a clear link to two specific factors:

1. Focus on Welfare Crime: In municipalities that actively combat corruption and welfare crime, the propensity to report increases.

2. Turbulence and Change: Organizations undergoing a phase of restructuring or turbulence often experience higher pressure in their channels.

Experience also shows that municipalities that are engaged and skilled at continuously training their staff receive more—and more relevant—reports.

Screening and the Need for Investigative Expertise

One of the greatest challenges for a municipality is managing the breadth of what is reported. Less than half of the incoming cases actually fall under the strict definition of the Whistleblowing Act. Much of it instead concerns general complaints or personnel matters. Despite this, a large portion of the reports carry significant value for the employer to be made aware of and to follow up on.

Once a complex case has been identified, the next challenge arises: the investigation. Conducting an investigation internally can be legally and operationally complicated. A clear trend is therefore that more and more municipalities choose to bring in external expertise to quality-assure the investigative work and guarantee an independent review.

The New Administrative Challenge: "War of the AI:s”

Once a case has been handled, it does not always end there. Awareness among journalists and the public regarding the existence of these channels has increased, which has led to a significant spike in requests to extract documents from the systems.

This is largely driven by AI technology. Since reviewers can now use AI to read and summarize vast amounts of text, they do not hesitate to request extensive logs and all available cases. For the already heavily burdened municipal case officers, this creates immense administrative pressure, as confidentiality and harm assessments (skadeprövning) must be carried out promptly and meticulously, since accidental disclosure of sensitive information can have severe consequences.

To meet this AI-driven wave of requests, the municipalities themselves have begun implementing AI support in their processes. By allowing an AI to handle the groundwork and flag potential confidentiality risks, administrative time can often be cut by around 80%. This frees up time so that case officers can focus on what only a human can do: the final, qualified harm assessment.