NTL demands that the trust reform must entail:

• Revitalizing co-determination, with better training, sufficient time to perform the duties of the office, and a clearer distinction from political decisions
• Replacing management by objectives and results with a system that focuses on professional judgment to achieve overarching political goals
• Abolishing the flat budget cuts introduced by the Solberg government
• Performing work under public management with the organization's own permanent employees in full-time positions and with clear lines of responsibility
• Developing a new leadership platform in the state based on the state's unique character, values, and overarching goals

In the Hurdal Platform, the government has announced that it will introduce a trust reform in the public sector. The reform must entail a break with market management, as this stands in the way of leadership and governance based on professionalism and co-determination.

Market management of the state sector has in recent decades been characterized by forms of governance, organization, and leadership that have led to less autonomy for employees, more control of the individual, and the undermining of cooperation between the parties. Together with cuts in the budgets of the enterprises, this has weakened the state's ability to fulfill its social mission and has resulted in poorer services for citizens.

The goal of the trust reform must be to revitalize co-determination schemes, give employees more trust and autonomy in their everyday work, and ensure democratic leadership in the state. To achieve this, organizational forms built on competition and market management must be dismantled.

- We have started what must be the last budget year with flat cuts in the public sector. This must be the year where we discuss what is required for the public sector to become even better and for the services to citizens to have even higher quality, writes NTL leader Kjersti Barsok in an op-ed in Stat & Styring.

In 2021, DeFacto investigated the expectations that members and union representatives in a number of state enterprises had regarding the announced trust reform. You can read the results in the DeFacto report Trust and co-determination in the state.

NTL has prepared a booklet with measures that must be included in a trust reform for the state sector. The requirements are divided into the areas of co-determination, governance and financing, organization, and leadership.

LO has also summarized what they believe should be included in a trust reform in the LO memo Trust reform in the public sector. - Market solutions do not fit in the public sector. A trust reform is about creating an even better public sector. We must ensure that employees spend more time offering good public services, not meaningless reporting and bureaucracy, says LO deputy leader Roger Heimli about LO's plan for the public sector.

The government is responsible for the financing, organization, and governance of the state. It is also responsible for labor policy for 160,000 state employees. The government holds the tools and the responsibility for implementing the reform. The measures must therefore be followed up politically and toward the individual enterprises.

In the research sector, financing is governed by criteria that NTL believes should be abolished, and the Hatlen Committee has recommended abolishing six of them. - NTL believes this is a fantastic opportunity to carry out a necessary reckoning with the market management of the sector, which has been criticized for several decades, writes 2nd deputy leader of NTL Ellen Dalen in an op-ed in Khrono.

Co-determination and trust

Cooperation between the parties is the starting point for co-determination in the workplace. The trust reform must include measures that ensure state employers comply with the Basic Agreement entered into between the state and the main confederations. After many years of weakening co-determination, NTL considers it now
necessary for the government to take responsibility for ensuring that the employer's representatives in the individual enterprises fulfill their obligations under the Basic Agreement. NTL therefore promotes measures that will revitalize co-determination schemes, including a focus on joint training.

If we are to succeed with the trust reform, the union representatives in the workplaces and at the central level must be involved. NTL believes that a joint committee for trust reform should be established centrally in the state. The work on the trust reform in the state's workplaces must be carried out between the local parties. Norwegian working life is characterized by a high degree of autonomy for the individual employee. The governance of the state must facilitate that employees, to the greatest extent possible, have the opportunity to influence the execution of tasks and their own everyday work.