We are currently in the midst of the current information revolution and it is increasinglyimportant to allocate and utilize the resources spent on IT. To accomplish this, one solutioncould be to work together with IT. For municipalities, this can be a complicated process whenyou are dependent on the resources that are given and subject to laws regarding procurement,this places great demands on the Swedish municipalities.One solution could be to work collaboratively with IT across municipal borders, this studyexamines the advantages and disadvantages of this. The study was conducted using interviewand survey of various municipalities in the Gothenburg region. The study shows that there isjoint work across municipal boundaries but that communication sometimes fails, this provesamong other things that some communities feel they have a partnership with a municipality,while the other sees that they have no partnership.With the results from the study are discussed and problematized the current conditions thatexist between the municipalities today, and how they could change.

Numerous studies have showed that Swedish municipalities are responsible for several of the activities that concern children and their rights, e.g. school and health care. Furthermore, the Convention of the Rights of the Child is an international agreement that Sweden has signed and ratified which also implies the obligations that Swedish municipalities have. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare, from a social justice perspective, how children?s rights are being emphasized and how children?s opinions are being taken into consideration at the municipality level in Sweden.

Municipalities with a higher amount of female representatives has been shown to be more gender equal. Earlier reasearch has also shown that female politicians are more likely than male politicans to represent immigrants and refugees interests. However, the effect of female representation has not been tested on other subordinated groups than women. Swedish municipalities have full autonomy regarding refugee reception and local politicians are responsible for the decision on the amount of refugees that the municipality accept. The variations of female and male politicians in the local assemblies are expected to have different outcomes on the refugee reception, according to females social backgrounds and experiences.

Public participation is a key aspect in the planning of Swedish municipalities. It is probably the most important tool of them all in the planning towards a sustainable future within the cities and the municipalities as a whole. Participation from the public can take on several different forms. In this paper I focus to research and discuss in and around the usage of a web-based 3D platform called City Planner. The tool allows the user (the public) to view the municipalities planning in a fairly new (but quickly growing) environment.

This paper studies, from a client perspective, how three Swedish municipalities work with information about a voucher system in homecare. The paper is a qualitative study using structured informant interviews and analysis of documents. The interviewees are responsible of information about the voucher system in the municipalities. The studied documents describe and clarify the voucher system of the municipality. Neo-institutional organization theory is used to analyse the result.

Background: Several accounting scandals have caused a development from rules-based to principles-based regulation. Swedish municipalities follow the principle-based recommendations issued by RKR (The Council for Municipal Accounting). An explicit requirement of component depreciation has been introduced prior to 2014. The principles-based regulatory framework raises some choices regarding the introduction and demands that professional judgments are made. There is some risk that comparability decreases.

The municipalities of Sweden have a great responsibility when it comes to adapt the physical planning to a more sustainable development. The development of the society depends upon the growth of new communities and other public services, but to build new communities in a long-term sustainable manner you need good methods and guidance. This study presents four sustainability certification scheme intended to improve and adapt the planning, implementation and performance of new communities and infrastructure project to more sustainable methods based on economic, ecological and social sustainability. These systems are the latest versions of environmental classifications and similar rating schemes, but with a broader focus since they also include the social aspect of sustainability.This study aims to investigate what role sustainability certification schemes can play in local planning for sustainable development. The study compares the certification systems criteria to the tools and goals that the Swedish municipalities have been provided with, to lead efforts towards a more sustainable society.

 The Swedish school of today reflect the society we live in. We live in a multi cultural society and in our schools there are pupils with different backgrounds, cultures and mother tongue, which make it necessary for every teacher to treat every single pupil?s need and condition. The education in Sweden must be equivalent, according to Skollagen, 1 kap. 2§.

This report deals with the attitudes within municipalities of open source software and open standards and if open source software may be an option to gain open standards. The aim has been to find out if open source software and open standards would be able to solve the lock-in problems that municipalities have against proprietary software. The study is conducted as an exploratory, inductive and qualitative study with depth interviews of subjectively selected informants as data collection method. A literature review has also been implemented by the relevant books and articles. Some economic determinants of municipalities to make use of open source software have not been considered in this study.

Active environmental activity?? a comparative study of the municipalities environmental activityThesis in Political Science D-Level at Karlstad University byJenny Ljung Spring 2008Tutor: Michelle MichelletiThe threat against our climate is one of our biggest challenges today. The awareness of the problem has grown rapidly for the last years in governments on international, national and regional level. The Swedish government is recognized as one of the leading countries in the climate and environmental work internationally. The Swedish municipalities play a big role in this successful work.

In 1999 the Swedish Parliament decided about 15 environmental goals aimed to be achieved in time for the next generation. For example physical social planning must be based on programs and strategies how cultural-historical values has been attended, so called programs of cultural heritage. By law the Swedish municipalities are responsible for reaching these goals by creating program of cultural heritage. But only a few of the municipalities have these programs, meaning that many municipalities need to create programs of cultural heritage in the next five years.The aim of this report is to present a model of analysis on programs of cultural heritage in municipalities for preservation and development of cultural environments. By testing the model on the municipalities of Osby and Tomelilla methods on how to create a new program of cultural heritage or how to complete existing documents are formulated.One of the conclusions is that one document, program of cultural heritage, functions as landscape analysis, model of cultural valuation and strategy of developing cultural values.

In this thesis we present a qualitative study of Employer Branding through a perspective of gender. We examine the awareness of Employer Branding as a tool to break gender patterns in female and male dominated administrations in three Swedish municipalities. Six recruiters people were interviewed, including three pre-school managers and three managers of technical administrations, to see if there are any differences or similarities between the organizations? Employer Branding to break gender patterns. In addition to the interviews, the Web pages of these three municipalities were investigated through a contextual perspective.We found that our interviewees do use Employer Branding, but that they were not necessarily aware of its? meaning.

Who runs the development? A comparative study of the construction of residential buildings in Nacka and Södertälje.The aim of this study is to identify actors involved in the initiation and implementation of residential house construction in two Swedish municipalities. This means who is taking initiative for new residential buildings, who affects the planning process, who finances these new buildings and who builds them. By exploring empiric material from the municipalities of Nacka and Södertälje, the above questions will be answered and by referring to pluralism, growth machine theory and regime theory a link to general theories of political science is made. The results found show that the analysed municipalities have quite different possibilities for acting and that these backgrounds are also important for which actors will take initiative for new residential buildings and which actors will be allowed to state their opinion during the planning process.

The aim of my study is to answer the question whether there is a potential for services by working horses in the Swedish municipalities. The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Swedish Farmers Union (LRF) has started a cooperation called Climate School (Klimatskolan), with the purpose to increase knowledge in environmental and climate related issues in context of agriculture. This Master thesis is in the framework of the Climate School.Global warming is a problem that gets much attention today. Global warming and climate change are two subjects that are very much in focus on the political agenda. The municipalities of Sweden have a big responsibility concerning environmental work and to develop their own environmental thinking.

In part this paper is a contribution to the ongoing Swedish discussion about our public structures. The discussion has picked up speed in the last years thanks to a government backed committee trying to come up with a suggestion to make our public sector more efficient. A big part of the debate is about the independence and work of our municipalities, what they should do, what they shouldn?t do and when the state should step in and take over. I make a theoretical investigation into one of these issues, the one about job creation.