Speech by Bengt Westerberg, chair of Swedish Red Cross and former Minister of Social Affairs, 2008. 22 years ago I met with Adolf Ratzka for the first time. I was then a politician, the leader of the Liberal party in Sweden, Folkpartiet and had welfare policy for disabled people high on my agenda. Adolf and Bengt Elmén, who also was present when we met in 1986 and who is present here today, told me about the social experiment they had initiated in Stockholm and some other municipalities to substitute the conventional social services provided by the local authorities with personal assistance.
