Sweden

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy governed under the constitution of 1975 in which all power is defined as emanating from the people. There is a population of 8.8 million of which around 83% live in urban areas. Of the five million working population 72% work in the services sector. Approximately one million people are employees of municipalities or county councils, which is around 25% of the Swedish labour force. (It should be noted that around 68% of the population are economically active and almost 40% of them work in the public sector).

In Sweden there is on average one elected member per 256 population compared to 2,903 in Northern Ireland.

There is an overarching sense in Sweden of what could be described as an acceptance of the role of the state in the daily lives of it’s citizens. The Welfare State is strong and omnipresent and the population and political parties accept this. There is a broad political consensus on these matters. In addition there is a strong sense of civic and social responsibility and a desire to work on behalf of the community.

The constitutional law establishes "primary units of local government (municipalities and county councils" and also provides constitutional protection for regional and local authorities. The operative principle in Sweden is local self-government.

Elected assemblies exercise the right of decision in the municipalities and county councils and local government has the right to raise tax for the performance of their duties. Local tax revenues make up 62-77% of funds for municipalities.

The legislative Instrument of Government (1974) provides for a right to raise taxes but the extent of this protection is unclear and often controversial. The regulation has not been interpreted as preventing temporary tax freezes or similar measures. The Association of Local Government recognises that despite the protection afforded to municipalities they are" dependent on transfers from government and in the final analysis it is government that sets the financial framework for municipal activities." Central Government intervention would be an exceptional event although not without precedent.

The tax raising powers of municipalities however give significant levels of independence to the councils in how they deliver services for which they are solely responsible.

Table 1. The levels of Swedish Public Administration

The constitution states that municipalities and county councils can run their own affairs. This is done through an Executive Committee that is normally made up of elected officials, although parties can nominate non-elected people to the Executive or other committees of the municipalities. This has led to a strong local government with a clear delineation between the role of the state and the organs of local government. Municipalities and County Councils are parallel political bodies and county councils do not have the authority to determine the work of the municipalities. Boundaries of the councils can be changed following local consultative referenda and decision by the government. Municipalities have no veto on such changes.

Municipalities and County Councils currently are responsible for the management of approximately 20% of GNP.

In addition to the county councils and municipalities there are also County Administrative Boards that are primarily a central government administrative division at the regional level and are not part of local government machinery.

Municipalities have some mandatory and some voluntary activities. Voluntary tasks include cultural affairs, recreational programmes and technical operations such as energy distribution and street maintenance.

Mandatory tasks are education, social services, planning and building, certain environmental tasks and emergency services.

County Councils are required to provide health care, dental care and care of people with learning disabilities and others with special needs. Their voluntary services include support for culture and education (folk high schools).

Municipalities are allowed to establish limited liability companies or corporations or foundations to ensure the delivery of services. These are used to provide such services as fire protection, water and sewerage systems and upper secondary schools. These can be joint ventures with other municipalities or solely for one municipality. Of the 1600 in existence in 1997, 100 were owned by one or more municipality.

Table 2. Responsibilities of each tier of government.

Authorities	Number	Responsibilities including	Size of authority Smallest Largest
State	1	Foreign Policy and Defence Public Order and Security Judicial System Macroeconomic Policy Higher Education and Research Highways Long distance transport and communications Labour Market Policy and employment issues Housing Policy Social Insurance and Transfer payments
County Administrative Boards (County Governor appointed by Cabinet. Members appointed by county councils)	21	Regional Economic Development Allocation of State Funds Administrative Matters such as permits, regulatory compliance. Supervisory responsibility in social services, environmental and rescue.	135,584 –1,725,756
County Councils	20	Health Care Regional Economic Development Matters of general concern which are connected with the county council or with their members and which are not to be attended to solely by the state, another municipality, another county council or some other body. Matters that municipalities agree should be dealt with at this level.	135,584-1,725 756 Note only two have more than 500,000 people. Average size 439,000 with a median of 273,000
Municipalities	289	Matters of general concerns which are connected with the municipality or with their members and which are not to be attended to solely by the state, another municipality, another county council or some other body.	2,854 – 711,119 Average size 30,685 182 of the councils have a population of 10,000- 50,000

Table 3. Size of municipalities and County Councils

Municipalities		County councils
No of Inhabitants	No of Municipalities	No of Inhabitants	No of County Councils
At least 100,000	11	At least 1,000,000	3
50,000- 100,000	31	300,000-500,000	2
25,000-50,000	55	200,000-300,000	12
10,000-25,000	120	Fewer than 200,000	3
Fewer than 10,000	72
Total	289		20

Table 4. Statistical Information on the size of the public and municipal sectors (1997 figures)

Sweden’s labour force by economic sector		Municipal employees by fields of operations
Private Goods production	26%	Elder Care/Other Special Care for individuals	39%
Private Services	36%	Education	25%
Municipal Services	19%	Child Care	19%
Unemployed	8%	Administration	8%
County Councils	6%	Technical Services	5%
Central Government Services	5%	Recreation and Culture	4%

Table 5. Contextual information regarding local government taxes % of total taxes and of GNP

Country	% of total taxes	% of GNP
Sweden	46.4	17.3
Denmark	32	16
Finland	32.8	11.6
Norway	27.7	8.7
Estonia	n.o.	n.o.
France	18.2	4.5
Netherlands	4.4	1.2
Poland	10.4	3.2
Great Britain	5	1.4
Germany	12.6	3.0

Source: SALA IDA, subsidiary of Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Swedish Federation of County Councils

The Swedish system has a number of initiatives that help improve services. Like all modern economies, services are being opened up to EGovernment approaches. Research indicates that 80% of the population 16-64 have access to the Internet. Of those 22% accessed municipal sites during September and December 2001 while only 4% visited web sites set up by county councils or regions. The only distinctive feature in the users was that those in rural areas tended to use the Internet more often than those in the major cities.

The municipalities also have a mixed economy in the delivery of public services and use not only directly employed staff but also private contractors and the voluntary sector where appropriate. In addition there is a culture of collaboration across municipalities in the delivery of services where economies of scale warrant such approaches.

A cornerstone to improving delivery of services is the choice afforded to individual residents of the municipalities. This enables residents to choose for example the provider of services to them of a range of services, including day care or schooling,

Citizens can challenge in the judicial system the decision making process of municipalities. The regional offices also monitor such decisions to ensure legality.

The sense of community responsibility is very strong and the consensual approach to politics has had a profound impact on the arrangements between national and state government. Party political processes are also engaged to sort out some of the problems, which may arise between municipalities and the national government. The primacy of the party political process in the system is evident as non-elected people can be appointed to committees but only through nomination by a political party.

The Swedish system is heavily dependent on the power of the political parties. Most are in the political centre by nature and therefore there is s considerable amount of consensus building at both local and national level. However the accountability and responsibility of politicians for service delivery cannot be underestimated.

Councillors are paid on an attendance basis, which is determined by the local council.

Currently the voting system means that citizens vote for parties and there is now some discussion whether this should be changed to mean that people vote for identified candidates.

As mentioned earlier the municipalities have the greatest responsibility for the delivery of public services. The size of municipalities varies considerably. The physically smallest covers 3.5 square miles while the largest covers 7,700 square miles. The most populous, Stockholm has 730,000 members while the smallest 3,000. The average municipality has 30,000 members.

As alluded to earlier the key principle in Sweden is that local government is the tier that delivers services to the public. Initiatives to involve citizens in the business of government vary from area to area and have included

Use of the Internet for electronic debate forums
Publication of minutes on websites
Consultation with citizens prior to drafting policy documents
Public Hearings
Civic Initiatives where citizen can submit private motions to the council
Referenda

There continues to be debate about the balance to be struck in relation to size of councils for efficiency purposes and the need to ensure local democracy. There is a sense that larger municipalities have lost touch with their communities and this is reflected in falling turnout at elections. Concern is being expressed about voter apathy and how this may impact on the management of public services. Not a great deal of engagement by politicians of civic society or the voluntary sector in a participative democracy sense was evident.

This has resulted in the establishment of a review of local government and public administration.

The role of local government as the main provider of public services has resulted in a comparatively small civil service dealing mainly with policy and parliamentary issues.

There is an element of tension between government agencies and local government in regard to the nature and delivery of services at local level. Local government is expressing concern about the extension of the authority of national government at local level through the establishment of standards and regulations by central government and it’s various agencies.

The consensus that local government is the key place for service to the public to be managed is overwhelming.

The government has recently introduced a financial equalisation process (characterised as the Robin Hood tax), which means that revenues raised by the more prosperous municipalities may be redistributed to other municipalities to assist in the provision of universal services to citizens. This has not been a popular move with those who have had to contribute to this equalisation process.

The governance arrangements also assist in enhancing the democratic process. However, it should be clearly understood that the system in Sweden is almost entirely a "representative democracy". There are three main models for organising the participation of elected representatives in municipal administration:

The sectoral model as illustrated below is the traditional model and means that elected representatives are grouped into committees each responsible for a particular field of operations. There has been a trend to organise committees by target group. For example Social Welfare committees have been changed to committees to handle care of the elderly, care of disabled persons or family and child care.

N.B.

The territorial model was an experiment during the 1980s but most municipalities have moved away from this approach. Only 20 have maintained such a decentralised district structure. An evaluation of the district system in Gothenburg concluded that whilst this approach assisted in the effective utilisation of funds it did not improve the democratic engagement of people at district level.

The functional model is becoming more popular and involves a division between purchaser and the administrative function. The purchaser function is provided by the specialised purchasing committee, which in turn places orders with its own municipal administrative offices and outside contractors. About 75 municipalities use this model to a greater or lesser extent but it is clear that the municipalities are inclined to a mixed economy provision of public services either by direct provision, use of third parties or through specially created public corporations. The committee structure constantly evolves and there is a trend to strengthening the role of the Executive Committee whilst removing purely operational matters from the business of the council and it’s committees that concentrate on policy and planning. An example of a functional model is illustrated below. It should also be noted that management culture is also changing with the development of profit centres within the administrative structure and the development of one-stop shops for citizens, which are designed to manage 80% of the contact with the municipality. Performance management systems are in place and the Association of Local Authorities also produce comparative analyses of cost of services across municipalities and county councils.

Given the pervasive influence of political parties there is little evidence of the engagement of civic society in the way that we would see in Northern Ireland. However, some work is being undertaken as referred to in paragraph 5.7.

In addition there are a number of councils that are broadcasting council meetings using Web TV and the council meetings are to an extent interactive with the population being able to email, fax or call a member of the council during the web broadcast and often receive a response during the meeting.

Other examples of involving communities include;

Within Sweden there is a successful support organisation of local government, which takes on a role of not only providing support such as training, but also research and lobbying the national government on behalf of municipalities and county councils. Membership is voluntary and its commercial activities and membership fees fund it.

Taxes in Sweden 2001. A summary of the tax statistical yearbook of Sweden 2001

Local Government Finance, Regeringskansliet

County Administrative Boards in Sweden: An introduction, Regeringskansliet

Swedish Local Government traditions and Reforms.

Soren Hagggorth; Kai Kronvall; Curt Riberdahl: Karin Rudebeck