The aim of this two-year masters thesis is to look for the Swedish public library´s core business, using theories about competence. The approach is qualitative. It is done by studying the Unesco Public Library Manifesto, the Swedish library legislation, the education in library and information science, two important Swedish library related journals and by asking public librarians about their work and point of view regarding competence.The research shows mainly two sides of the core competence of public librarians: information technology competence and literature knowledge. The conclusion is that the two meet in the idea of mass education, which could therefore be called the Swedish public library´s core business..

The purpose of this essay is to describe the organization of the Swedish Animal WelfareAgency during the time it was in operation. The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was established in 2005 by the government who saw it as necessary in order to strengthen the protection of cruelty to animals in Sweden. However, the agency was shut down already in2007 and its responsibilities as an agency was moved back to the government and the department of agriculture. During its time in operation, the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, received much criticism, among other things because of its interpretations of the law which were seen as too focused on details and thus ?bureaucratic?.

This thesis is dealing with the programs of control regarding deceit and quality assurance within the Swedish social insurance administration in Skåne, the years 2002-2005. In 2005 the Swedish National Audit Office released a report regarding the lack of measures towards deceit and fraud, and the lack of quality in the data for decision making within the administration. The questions to be addressed are why the administration does not make up to the demands regarding quality and measures towards deceit that the government and The National Audit Office demands. The main source for data has been interviews with workers within the administration and annual reports from public authorities. To understand and be able to explain the problems within the administration the theory by Michael Lipsky regarding street-level bureaucrats is used.

This report is written in cooperation with Eskilstuna municipality public administration for urban planning. The reports purpose is to look into how other public authorities carry out public purchase of consultants and entrepreneurs in the urban planning area. The goal is to come up with suggestions of how Eskilstuna municipality public administration for urban planning can improve its purchasing process in this field in order to minimize the risk where a consultant or entrepreneur files an appeal against the decision of awarding a contract to another rival. The appeal can be filed to the county administrative court.The public administration for urban planning can do its purchases through the model of "lowest price" or "economically most favorable" for them. When using "economically most favorable", the department can value a number of soft parameters by giving them points and the offer which gets most points can be rewarded the right to sign a contract.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the EU directive 2004/35/EC on environmental liability impacts the Swedish administrative legal order. The thesis examines the directive through two main EU principles - the principle of good administration and the principle of procedural autonomy. The EU principle of good administration as a concept contains various procedural and substantive obligations that make up the subject for examination of the directive, both as regulated in the directive and as general principles of EU law. The directive is analyzed using a comparative method to determine to what extent the procedural and substantive principles of the directive impacts the Swedish administrative law, and weather or not the Swedish regulations comply with the EU principle of good administration.The results of the study shows that, althought there?s a general principle of national procedural autonomy, the EU principles of good administration do affect the Swedish administrative regulation in various aspects, through the implementaion of the directive on environmental liability as well as general principles of EU law.

With this master thesis we wanted to find out in which way the concept of public service is connected to different perspectives, ideals, visions of the future and forms of organizations. The purpose with our thesis was to do an analysis of different concepts regarding to public service. To the analysis of concepts we used Swedish newspapers and analysed the issue of public service that had been discussed in articles written during the last five years. From this material and other papers about public service we developed a model of public service ideals. We wanted to find out what the different perspectives thought about the Swedish television and their commission.

The Public Sector Scorecard (PSS) is a younger version of the balanced scorecard, created for public and nonprofit organizations. The latest model of PSS is divided into three main groups and seven perspectives, while the balanced scorecard consists of four perspectives. Organizations who use either PSS or the balanced scorecard are supposed to have a clear vision spread all over the unit. This study has sought differences between the two models of financial control in both theory and practice. The first part of the study is a theoretical comparison between the models? structures and terms used in them.

This paper deals with the use of Internet at Swedish public libraries. The author asks whether public libraries should or should not limit access to information available on the Internet. Starting from the American discussion, concerning Internet at public libraries, the author shows the Swedish attitudes. The paper demonstrates that many Swedish public libraries have adopted rules forbidding retrieval of certain kinds of information, such as hard-core pornography and racist propaganda. The persons in charge of such actions claim that public libraries should provide high-quality educational literature and should not spread mass-produced, provocative information.

The purpous of this master?s thesis is to explore how the swedish public library evolved between 1890-1911, before the state implemented the library reform in 1912. The material used to cunduct the study concists mainly of texts published during the time frame of the thesis in the form of books, booklets and articles from Folkbiblioteksbladet, a journal dedicated to the subject of the swedish public library.Drawing upon Habermas theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere and Bourdieus theories about taste as social distinction and symbolic capital, the thesis seeks to show how the public participated in the evolvement of the public library and which aspects of society that contributed to the public library?s establishment as an institution. The findings are also discussed in relation to previous research of the history of the Swedish public library.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

The public administration and its officials have a number of values which they have to relate to in their work. The values are a set of democratic and economic values.This study?s purpose is to examine how the officials at the National Insurance Office in Sweden give priority to these values. The study is performed by interviews with officials at two insurance offices.The study shows that the officials in a high degree value the democratic values legal security and public ethics. In turn they experience that productivity, which is an economic value, is being promoted in a high degree from the management.

The transformation within the swedish infrastructure has been a slow process from thebeginning of time. For almost a decade, the traditional form of contracting regardingbuildings and foremost infrastructure has evolved contracting involving the owner to definethe outcome of the product, regardless involvement from the supposed contractor. As forthe swedish market, the traditional design-bid-build (DBB) have been the primary choice ofcontracting. Although changes have been made over time regarding contracting formswithin the road administration, the railway sector has not improved or justified changesregarding choice of contracting, they have conducted same contracting relationshipsbetween them and the contractor.This bachelor thesis, conducted at the Swedish railway administration with supervision ofprofessor Kristian Widén at Lunds University, explores the forces behind the new era ofcontracting within the railway administration. This bachelor thesis focuses mainly oncontracting regarding design-build-operate-main (DBOM), the new contracting formulabetween the owner and the contractor.

The transformation within the swedish infrastructure has been a slow process from thebeginning of time. For almost a decade, the traditional form of contracting regardingbuildings and foremost infrastructure has evolved contracting involving the owner to definethe outcome of the product, regardless involvement from the supposed contractor. As forthe swedish market, the traditional design-bid-build (DBB) have been the primary choice ofcontracting. Although changes have been made over time regarding contracting formswithin the road administration, the railway sector has not improved or justified changesregarding choice of contracting, they have conducted same contracting relationshipsbetween them and the contractor.This bachelor thesis, conducted at the Swedish railway administration with supervision ofprofessor Kristian Widén at Lunds University, explores the forces behind the new era ofcontracting within the railway administration. This bachelor thesis focuses mainly oncontracting regarding design-build-operate-main (DBOM), the new contracting formulabetween the owner and the contractor.

The transformation within the swedish infrastructure has been a slow process from thebeginning of time. For almost a decade, the traditional form of contracting regardingbuildings and foremost infrastructure has evolved contracting involving the owner to definethe outcome of the product, regardless involvement from the supposed contractor. As forthe swedish market, the traditional design-bid-build (DBB) have been the primary choice ofcontracting. Although changes have been made over time regarding contracting formswithin the road administration, the railway sector has not improved or justified changesregarding choice of contracting, they have conducted same contracting relationshipsbetween them and the contractor.This bachelor thesis, conducted at the Swedish railway administration with supervision ofprofessor Kristian Widén at Lunds University, explores the forces behind the new era ofcontracting within the railway administration. This bachelor thesis focuses mainly oncontracting regarding design-build-operate-main (DBOM), the new contracting formulabetween the owner and the contractor.

?ÄTA-work? (Changes, Supplementary and Retiring works) is more or less common in all construction projects whether it is about houses, roads or railways, in the planning stage, or in the construction stage. For the Swedish Transport Administration, which is the largest purchaser of infrastructure in Sweden, ÄTA-work is a hotter topic than ever.Economists and managers want to draw conclusions on the projects share ÄTA-work, while the project manager is concerned about whether it is possible to draw any conclusions at all as each project is unique in itself and has its own merits. There is a big variation in the amount of ÄTA-work in different geographic districts in the Swedish Transport Administration.This study shows that the Swedish Transport Administration does not have a unanimous approach regarding the management of ?ÄTA-work?.