Swedish public administration has for the last few decades undergone reforms aimed at making it more efficient. A substantial part of these reforms have concerned creating clearer roles for politicians versus Officials in the public sector, i.e. giving politicians a responsibility for setting goals and steering activities and public Officials the role of implementing them.This study aims to examine one reform following this path that is under implementation in a Swedish public authority; Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency. The purpose of the reform is to increase the organization?s effectiveness and the rule of law.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and Officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/Officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/Officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

The general purpose of this work is to study how social welfare offices organization affect accessibility for those seeking immediate financial assistance in the municipality of Stockholm. Accessibility in this study is principally defined by Swedish Law. The study is based on an empowerment perspective. Data was collected by qualitative interviews of Officials in eight social welfare offices. Search path to reach the Officials was registered by participant observations.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some information aspects of decision-making in Swedish municipal committees. Which are the information needs and how do they emerge? How is the needed information sought and received and which are the sources? How do the members of the committees use information when making decisions? To answer these questions qualitative interviews were conducted with four politicians (two chairpersons representing the political majority and two vice-chairpersons representing the opposition) and three Officials in a municipality with a population of about 50 000. The politicians were interviewed in capacity of decision-makers, whereas the Officials from the local administration are of interest through their decision-supportive role, which includes providing of reports and other information. The examination indicates that even if the conditions to some extent differ between the committees, the administration is highly influential: Notions and proposals about action may come from inhabitants, organizations, politicians etc., but are handled by the administration, which often is the problem formulating actor, through which the informational needs nearly always are canalized.

The aim of this study is to investigate how länsstyrelsen as a supervisory authority to private compulsory care-institutions works, to guarantee adequate institutional care of unprivileged children and youth with special problems.In order to reach this aim the following questions are to be answered:? Describe länsstyrelsen´s supervision of private compulsory care-institutions (HVB-hem)? How does the Officials at the three chosen county administrative boards find about the responsibilityTo answer the questions of this bachelor thesis I have chosen to apply qualitative methods, by interviewing five supervisory authorities from länsstyrelsen, in three different county administrative boards in Sweden.The findings of the study show that Officials sometimes find it hard to know the exact meaning and differences between accountability and to be accountable. It also shows that they tend to think that the relationship between länsstyrelsen and the private compulsory care institutions is complicated. Because the Officials have two part relationships, they have on the one hand a consultative role and on the other hand the supervising role.Keywords: Länsstyrelsen, Hem för vård eller boende (HVB-hem), Ansvar, Ansvarsutkrävande, Socialtjänstlagen.

The implementation of integration policy has in recent times been a major problem for the municipal administrations in Swedish municipalities. The concept of integration is considered to be very diffuse, difficult to apply and implement the following decisions. To understand the concept of integration is the first step, followed by understanding its complexity in an organization.In this study, I focus on studying the implementation of integration policies for integration work with Kalmar Municipality as a case study. I am using Lundquist's implementation theory about understanding, able and willing. The survey consists primarily of interviews but also a certain document to get a perspective on how integration policy has gone into integration work with the hypothesis that it is the understanding that weaknesses of the Officials in the implementation of integration policies.

The aim of this study was to investigate and analyze what is required for the environmental quality objective Good built environment to be fulfilled by 2020 in the Swedish county Jämtland. The focus of the study was to gain an understanding of the work that the local government does and further investigate the problems that the Officials face with implement these questions in themunicipal planning.The study is based on semi structured interviews with Officials in the municipalities of Jämtland county. General plan and programs for the municipality have been reviewed, based on how the plans highlights these issues linked to sustainability and Good built environment.The results of the study show that there are major problems with the formulations of the environmental quality goal in itself and its specifications. The environmental quality goal is formulated to suit the entire Sweden. But as it turns out in the analysis it does not work on the basis of the conditions inJämtland with sparsely populated areas and scattered dwellings.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Officials within the Swedish public libraryorganisation view the IT-development, how the IT-development progresses within theorganisation and if there is a need for a national IT-strategy for the public libraries in Sweden.Four unorganized interviews with Officials within the regional- and county libraryorganisation and one within the national organisation where conducted. This study is aqualitative examination where the phenomenographic approach has been used as inspirationfor the analytic model. The analytic result has been compared to the system theory of how anoptimal system should be constructed to perform in an optimal way and to be able to producegood results. The results of this study show a wish for a better national cooperation regardingthe IT-development for the Swedish public libraries. Today?s library structure should bereviewed over in order to enable the libraries to produce even better results from the cooperation?s..

The implementation of integration policy has in recent times been a major problem for the municipal administrations in Swedish municipalities. The concept of integration is considered to be very diffuse, difficult to apply and implement the following decisions. To understand the concept of integration is the first step, followed by understanding its complexity in an organization.In this study, I focus on studying the implementation of integration policies for integration work with Kalmar Municipality as a case study. I am using Lundquist's implementation theory about understanding, able and willing. The survey consists primarily of interviews but also a certain document to get a perspective on how integration policy has gone into integration work with the hypothesis that it is the understanding that weaknesses of the Officials in the implementation of integration policies.

This essay has a purpose to understand and investigate how disabled people, where the handicap imply difficulty to speak for one self, get the rights of self-determination and influence satisfied. Our purpose with this essay is to focus on how representatives from organizations, trustees and Support and Service for Persons with Certain functional Impairments- Officials(abbreviated LSS after the Swedish title of the Act lag om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade), describe and discuss matters concerning the individuals? opinions and requests from within their respective position. We will with this as a base analyze how these three parties facilitate and meet the individuals? influence and self-determination.

This paper examines the non-profit organization Friskis&Svettis in order to gain insight into whether governmentality is used and if it is being used in what way. Furthermore we analyzed the requirements and consequences that that may have developed out of this governance structure. To get answers to the questions asked in this paper, a qualitative approach has been taken by the use of interviews with Officials at Friskis&Svettis Uppsala. The conclusions drawn from the survey is that there are factors that indicate that governmentality is used within the organization by way of the use of guidelines which can be seen as a technique to control individuals and point them in the desired direction, and the follow-ups that can verify that the guidelines are being followed by the Officials. The guidelines and the follow-up have also been an organizational requirement.

The aim of this study is to discuss how public Officials, who are implementing integration policies, describe and relate to ?immigrant women?. The analysis is based on interviews with eight public Officials. Drawing on perspectives from discourse theory, multiculturalism, western feminism and postcolonialism, the diskussion tries to place the interview statements within a theoretical debate concerning the concepts of culture/ethnicity and sex/gender. The picture of the ?immigrant woman? seems to be somewhat revised.

Fifty employees at a local industrial company answered a questionnaire about coping strategies and personality traits. One purpose of the study was to investigate if Officials and public employees used different coping strategies in stressful work situations. Another purpose of the study was to investigate if there was a relationship between the personality traits of the Officials and the public employees and their chosen coping strategies. Ten Item Personality Inventory and Brief COPE were used to examine personality traits and coping strategies respectively. The results showed a difference in exhibited personality traits where conscientiousness was higher among the official employees than the public employees.

The municipality of Olofström is intensifying the co-operation with Sölvesborg and Karlshamn, the two other municipalities in the west of Blekinge. They co-operate in two local federations and for the moment negotiations are going on about a third local federation in continuation school, but the municipalities do not agree. The aim of this thesis is to examine why Olofström co-operate with Sölvesborg and Karlshamn, if there are any problems and where the limit of this co-operation is. The method in the thesis is qualitative interviews with local politicians and Officials and an actor-structure-perspective is used. The result shows that Olofström is a municipality where the population is decreasing, and it has lost state subsidy during the last decade.

This essay concerns medical- and dental tourism. The main purpose with the essay was to study which factors that affects Swedish choices to seek medical- and dental care abroad and therefore reach an understanding for Swedish medical- and dental tourism to other countries. The aim has also been to try to reach an insight in how Swedish medical- and dental tourism might develop the future. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five Officials who were well-grounded in the field. The theoretical framework concerned the need of travel, push- and pull factors, Maslow?s hierarchy of needs and the thinking about needs within business activities.