Introduction

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and, in terms of internal structure, a unitary state.

The general framework of municipalities’ status in Sweden is set by the new Constitution No. 1974: 152 SFS, which replaced the Constitution from 1806. The new constitution, officially titled the Royal Decree on the Establishment of a New Instrument of Government (Kungörlese om beslutad ny regeringsform), despite containing more general provisions on the importance of self-government than the previous constitution, contains fewer specific provisions concerning municipalities. It is therefore sometimes also called the Public Administration Act (Regeringsförordning). In addition, there is also a constitutional law on royal succession, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press (Konečný 2016: 84).

Already in Chapter 1, Foundations of the form of state, in §1(2), it is stated that “Swedish democracy is based on free expression of opinions and universal equal voting rights. These are realized through representative parliamentary government and municipal self-government (kommunal självstyrelse).” §7 establishes the existence of “primary municipalities” (primär-kommuner) and “county municipalities” (landstingkommuner), with decision-making authority in both types of self-government exercised by elected bodies.

The significance of municipal and county self-governments is expressed here only as a principle, and their constitutional anchoring is sometimes assessed as unremarkable. The relationship between the state and local self-government is, in Swedish understanding, therefore not based on explicit constitutional rights, but is rather regarded as a political question. It is even questionable how far one can speak in Sweden of a vertical hierarchy of public administration, as we attempted to express with the following scheme (Figure 1) and as is also reflected in another scheme cited in Swedish and other foreign sources (Structure, 1997, p. 9). At the same time, it should already be noted here that the space created in this vertical hierarchy is highly favorable for the realization of social justice, which is characteristic of the Swedish welfare state.

In Chapter 1, §2(2) of the Swedish constitution, for example, it is declared that the primary goal of public activity is the personal, economic, and cultural well-being of the individual, which specifically means that public administration has a special obligation (särskilt ålliga) to secure the right to work, housing, and education, and to promote social care and security (social omsorg och trygghet) and a good living environment. This foundation of Swedish social policy and Swedish understanding of social justice permeates a wide range of specific features characterizing its implementation by all public administration bodies, including municipalities.

1. Development and current position of municipalities in Sweden

Sweden had its first local self-government law already in 1862. This law separated secular municipalities (socken) from church municipalities, i.e., parishes (församling), which have since functioned in parallel but separately. Under church self-government law, for example, the Swedish Lutheran Church cares for church properties and has the right to collect church tax, even though since 2000 it has lost its privileged status and is now considered only one of the churches, yet it still manages, for example, municipal cemeteries (Taxes, 2001, p. 6).

1.1. Number and size of municipalities

The number of municipalities that were established in this way in 1862 reached 2,499. Considering that Sweden at that time was still a very backward, predominantly agrarian state and that only a minimum of public administration tasks belonged to municipalities, the highly fragmented post-feudal settlement structure was suitable under those conditions (Konečný 2012, Konečný 2014). Only the development of the welfare state, especially after the Second World War, created a need to consolidate the settlement structure, while as late as 1951 the number of municipalities was still only 2,598.

The development of the number and structure of municipalities since that year has been as follows, and from the last date mentioned it has not changed to this day:

Table 1 Development and structure of municipalities in Sweden

As can be seen from the table, two reforms in 1952 and 1971–1974 had the greatest impact on municipal size structure and number. The first reform (formally a reform of municipal boundaries) aimed to ensure that no municipality had fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, but in 1960 there were still around 350 municipalities smaller than that. The smallest number of municipalities was reached after the final reform ended: on 1 January 1974 there were 278, but in some cases municipalities were subsequently split again. The second reform raised the minimum threshold to 8,000 inhabitants. The current size structure of municipalities as of 1 November 2000 (which remains valid to the present day) is as follows (for completeness, the size structure of counties is also given):

Table 2 Size structure of municipalities and counties in Sweden in 2000

Even the current Swedish system of municipal classification is not without exceptions: the island of Gotland is a municipality that is also a county, and the cities of Göteborg and Malmö belong to no county, while they have competencies both of municipalities and counties. With these exceptions, all municipalities in Sweden—ranging from the smallest municipality, Bjurholm, with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants, to Stockholm with 680,000 residents (and suburbs with approximately 1.2 million)—share the same competence framework, even though some municipalities use the designation “city” (stad). Yet their competence framework is identical to that of other municipalities, and there are officially no “cities” in Sweden. The average-size municipality has around 34,000 inhabitants. Despite being among the largest municipal administrative units in Europe, Sweden’s structure of governing bodies still places it in the group of decentralized democracies.

Particularly in larger municipalities, re-decentralization has again become pronounced in recent years. Local parts are created as administrative units. For example, 436,000-person Göteborg now has 21 district boards, which are responsible for matters such as social services. This is also related to spatial size, especially where municipalities are formed from sparsely populated settlements. Kiruna in northern Sweden covers almost 20,551 km2 (42% of the area of the Slovak Republic); by comparison, the smallest municipality, Sundbyberg, covers only 9 km2 (roughly the size of the city district of Bratislava - Staré Mesto).

Beyond the constitution, the legal framework of municipalities is therefore defined by both the Municipal Boundaries Act (Lagen om endringar i Sverige indelning i kommuner och landsting, No. 1979: 411 SFS) and the Municipal Government Act (Kommunallag, No. 1991: 900 SFS). The Municipal Boundaries Act also includes the way in which municipalities are established and dissolved.

1.2. Scope of municipal powers

The status of municipalities (kommun) and counties (land) is anchored in the Swedish constitution also in Chapter 1, §7(2), through their right to impose taxes so that they can perform their own duties, without the constitution determining either type or rate. This is a key legal provision that determines not only the financial but the whole competence framework of local self-government in Sweden. A number of other constitutional provisions also prevent this right from being withdrawn from municipalities, even by law or for example by court decision. Here, a legal principle appears that is rare in other legal systems (although Sweden’s legal system otherwise clearly draws on German legal traditions) and means that a taxpayer has the right to co-decide on how and for what purpose his or her taxes will be used. A taxpayer, resident, property owner, and local tax payer is a “member” of the municipality or county and may assert this right against the municipality or county even through judicial proceedings. This is subsequently expressed in §4 of the Municipal Government Act: “A person who is registered as a municipal resident, owns property there, and pays local taxes is a member of that municipality,” which can be seen as an application of the domicile principle.

A court or the state may enter into municipal decision-making only when a citizen invokes this right against it (motioner).

The constitutional law also provides that changes to territorial administrative divisions, municipal organization, municipal functions, and municipal tax authority may be made only by statute (Chapter 8, §5).

Municipalities thus have these tasks (Regional 1996, pp. 211-212):

  • political activities: promotion of local political activity and public oversight;
  • spatial and technical planning: local planning and urban development, housing, support for industrial and commercial development, tourism, roads and transport, parks and public green spaces, parking, environmental and hygienic planning and oversight, rescue services, and civil defense;
  • culture and recreation: support for interest groups and associations, local libraries, sports grounds and recreation areas, youth centres, music schools and folk art schools;
  • social services and education: child care (full-day facilities for children aged 0–6, open preschool facilities, home-based daily child care), care for school-age youth (full-day facilities and youth clubs for children aged 7–12, home-based daily care for children aged 7–12), education of children and youth (nine-year compulsory education, secondary education, nine-year and secondary education for children with learning disorders), adult education (basic and secondary schools for adults, education for adults with mental disabilities, Swedish-language instruction for immigrants);
  • health and medical services: primary health care, services for older people and persons with disabilities (nursing care and home help, personal assistants, transport services), care for individuals and families (institutional and outpatient adult care, child and youth care, social assistance to individuals, psychiatric care);
  • special activities: immigration, labour market support;
  • economic activities: provision of infrastructure for the business sector, electricity, gas, and district heating supply, water supply and sewage, communications, ports, and some airports.

From the Municipal Self-Government Act, municipalities also have tasks they perform in the “voluntary sector” (original competencies). In Chapter 2, Rights of municipalities and counties, §9 states: “The assembly decides on matters concerning major issues or otherwise significant municipal or county matters, especially

  1. the goals and principles of municipal/county activities,
  2. the budget, taxes, and other important financial matters,
  3. the organization and activity of committees,
  4. elections of committees and nomination of their members and deputies,
  5. elections of auditors and their deputies,
  6. frameworks for remuneration of elected representatives,
  7. annual reports,
  8. referenda.”

In the voluntary sector, it is respected that municipalities govern their own affairs themselves, while it is also emphasized that public interest must be the guiding principle. Even municipal enterprises therefore must operate on a non-profit principle.

In Sweden, municipalities can also be assigned tasks only by law. There are currently about 20 such laws, and these laws assign duties to all municipalities regardless of size. In this way, municipalities perform duties under, for example, the education law, construction and planning law, social services law, emergency services law, public health care law, and others. The state also controls performance. This set of “transferred competencies” is referred to in Sweden as the “mandatory sector.” In practice, however, every one of these laws merely sets a general line and formal rules for local government activity.

Even within the mandatory sector, there are considerable differences in municipal discretion. In only some cases is a municipality truly merely the executor of tasks assigned by the state and has no freedom in carrying them out (for example, in food control). By contrast, with other mandatory-sector tasks its discretion is much wider (for example, in issuing building permits).

1.3. Municipal bodies

In Swedish municipalities, there are three types of self-governing bodies:

  • the municipal assembly (kommunfullmäktige), elected for a four-year term in direct elections. It meets 4 to 10 times per year and is the only body with authority to decide on matters in which the municipality is a contractual party or where law requires it. It also approves the budget and local taxes. Municipal funds may be provided to another person—natural or legal—only if this is supported by law. All other powers—including decision-making power, which is a crucial aspect—may be delegated by the assembly to its committees. Assembly meetings are chaired by an ordförande, who has no executive powers. These are posts performed outside paid employment, which does not mean they are without accountability;
  • municipal management, formed by the executive board (kommunalråd), elected by the municipal assembly. Sometimes this body is also called the “municipal government,” unlike the municipal assembly, which is called the “municipal parliament.” It prepares all materials discussed by the municipality. It establishes, coordinates, and monitors the work of other committees, sometimes also called commissions (see below), especially where this would increase municipal spending; otherwise it has only limited powers over them. Every municipality must establish an executive committee. Municipalities are professionalizing the role of the municipal commissioner (kommunalråd), a municipal assembly member with executive responsibility for a particular agenda; other committees, i.e., commissions, consist exclusively of elected members. They have decision-making authority and are particularly responsible for substantive and expert oversight of different fields, so elected members with relevant qualifications are appointed to them. In the past, municipalities were required to create mandatory committees for education, social affairs, spatial planning and construction, and environmental and health protection. Today, municipalities may freely decide which committees to establish: they often combine several related areas, but there are also reverse examples in which one field is split more narrowly across several committees. The only exception, besides the mandatory executive committee, is the election committee, which must be established in every municipality. Among their general tasks are preparation of material for assembly decisions, implementation of decisions adopted by the assembly, and management and execution of day-to-day activities to fulfill goals set by the assembly. Each committee also manages work performed by staff in its corresponding departments.
  • In addition to committees for individual substantive areas, this category also includes district boards for local parts, to which responsibility for social issues is often assigned (Social 2002, p. 5). In practice, original socken are often used for their territorial competence. In Örebro and in many other, especially larger, cities, social-policy competences have been fully transferred to intra-urban structures mainly to improve accessibility (Isling 2022).

Municipal administration is provided by the municipal office (kommunstyrelse); in some municipalities, a director (direktör) leads the municipal office. Many municipalities provide services in certain fields on a contractual basis with external providers. Among these are, above all, stock companies, foundations, and other private-law or public-law entities established by municipalities. There are currently around 1,500 such entities in Sweden.

About 100 of these entities were formed through inter-municipal cooperation, for which the latest reform at the end of the 1990s became the basis. Since then, municipalities and counties may, on the basis of public law, create joint boards and thereby manage joint activities together (Role 2000, p. 95).

1.4. Municipal budgets

Swedish municipalities also prepare budgets that reflect the tasks and responsibilities assigned to them by the Municipal Government Act. If the Swedish government and parliament assign municipalities new duties, financial resources must also be provided.

In municipal budgets there are three main spending categories:

  • operating costs (referred to as Opex), such as salaries of teachers, social workers, school catering, maintenance costs, electricity, water, gas, and so on; loans may not be used to cover these;
  • capital expenditures, such as investments in residential and administrative buildings, etc.; these may be covered by long-term or short-term loans or by municipal bonds;
  • other expenditures, which have only marginal significance and include, for example, interest.

From operating expenditures, which account for approximately 60% of municipal spending, most goes to education and child care (about 38%) and elderly care and the broader social care system (about 23%) (Vanhuyse et al. 2021).

2. Position of municipalities in relation to other levels of public administration

In the analysis of public administration organization, most European countries show a certain boundary between (local, decentralized) state administration and (local, territorial) self-government (Konečný 2016: 11–12). Sometimes one may encounter the view that such a division does not exist in Sweden and that there is only central state administration and then just two layers of self-government with directly elected bodies and their own competence framework. However, this situation is much more complex. In reality, Sweden also has decentralized state administration. This must be understood in connection with the fact that central state administration is exercised not only by ministries. There are, as is often emphasized, relatively few ministries (13), and they are small offices that primarily prepare legislative proposals. Central state administration is also carried out by about 100 central administrative authorities, which are relatively independent in the sense of modern public-management doctrine, but are still state agencies. These include, for example, the Social Insurance Agency, the Board of Health and Social Affairs, the Public Employment Service, the Work Environment Authority, the Housing Agency, the Planning and Building Agency, the National Agency for Education, the committee for people with disabilities, and others. Such decentralized state administrative bodies also exist at all counties and sometimes at municipal level (for example, employment offices - Ämbetsverk). Similarly, there are also organizations of regional administration (landstingorganisationer), operating at municipal level (for example for health care, but also education—upper secondary schools, tourism, public transport, and the like) (Torben 2000).

Figure 1 Scheme of the arrangement of public administration bodies in Sweden

2.1 Position of central state organs in relation to municipalities

Central state administration (as well as self-government at municipal and county level) has precisely defined competencies that practically do not overlap. They can, however, complement and even combine with each other. The state retains the right to create a general legal framework that secures basic citizens’ rights, sets goals that local authorities should follow, and creates financial incentives and stimuli for the development of initiatives and institutions from below (Bakalarczyk 2017).

As a constitutional monarchy, Sweden is governed nationally by a government that implements decisions of the Swedish parliament and submits proposals for new laws or amendments to existing legislation. It is supported by the Office of the Government and more than 300 state agencies. Ministries are also part of the Office of the Government and are responsible for different areas of social life. One of these is the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (Socialdepartement).

The ministry is responsible for matters related to good living conditions in Swedish society. In this sense, this includes various forms of insurance for citizens (health and social insurance) to ensure financial protection in case of illness, old age, maternity leave, and parental leave; care for people with social problems, with disabilities, and in retirement age. It also handles issues of children’s rights and equality between women and men. From this it follows that social policy in Sweden belongs to the jurisdiction of this ministry.

The implementation of social policy is within the scope of state agencies, including:

  • the Social Insurance Office (Riksförsäkringsverket), which oversees the general insurance funds (allmän försäkringskassan), established in each county by the county assemblies. These funds have 320 insurance offices at municipal level (and operate in every municipality). The national insurance office may also issue binding guidelines.
  • the Swedish National Board for Health and Social Affairs (Socialstyrelsen), which is responsible for public social services at local level. It issues regulations and guidelines, which, however, are not binding either for county self-government or for municipal self-government. Nonetheless, it has six regional offices across Sweden through which it supervises compliance with the relevant legislation. Its structure also includes two key departments. The Social Affairs department deals with disabled persons and support for families and individuals, while care for older citizens falls under the health department (Socialstyrelsen 2001). The Swedish National Board for Health and Social Affairs has an irreplaceable role in Sweden because it develops and communicates knowledge in social and health care primarily to municipal and county politicians and officials, as well as service providers and their employees. Its motto can be expressed as: “Good health, good health and social care” (Socialstyrelsen 2013: 5).
  • the Swedish National Board for Institutional Care (Statens institutionsstyrelse, abbreviated SiS), which is also responsible, among other matters, for social care for children and youth placed in care homes or supervised housing under the law on special protective decisions in youth care. In cooperation with social workers, it decides which home a child or young person will be placed in and how care for such an individual will be realized. There are currently 24 such homes in Sweden with capacity for more than 600 places.

A significant part of social policy (with the exception of state social insurance—Försäkring) is carried out by regional (counties) and local (municipal) territorial self-government.

2.2 Position of counties in relation to municipalities

The division of tasks between municipalities and counties follows the principle that tasks to be performed for a broader population are assigned to counties, while tasks that usually affect the local community fall under municipal competence.

Important here is Chapter 11 of the constitution, especially §6 and following. The first paragraph of the sixth section assigns central offices and territorial offices, as well as other state bodies, under government coordination. The second paragraph states that “public administration tasks may be assigned to municipalities” (meaning both primary and county self-governments). Finally, the third paragraph, which was inserted into the constitution by Amendment No. 1998:1700, states that public administration tasks may also be transferred to commercial companies, associations, groups, foundations, registered religious societies, their parts, or private persons.

Counties ensure (Regional 1996, pp. 213):

  • health and medical care (primary contact-level health care, hospital management, dental care, psychiatric care, nursing services, maternal and child care, vaccination, and radiology centres, care for physically and mentally disabled persons);
  • regional growth and development (regional economic development, planning and strategy, and promotion of tourism and environmental protection);
  • public transport;
  • education (post-secondary education and training for nurses, physiotherapists, and other health professions, upper secondary education outside nursing, agriculture, and forestry, and associations for adult education);
  • culture (county theatres, music institutions, museums, and libraries).

Although municipalities in Sweden are comparatively large, they still do not constitute sufficiently large population bases for some public services to be placed in municipal provisioning, and therefore these have been assigned to counties. This applies particularly to health care, which is almost exclusively a county agency and accounts for more than three-quarters of county activities. County self-government has the task of ensuring that anyone living in Sweden has access to high-quality care. Health care is primarily financed from taxes, and a comparably high level of care should be guaranteed regardless of where a person lives in Sweden. Principles of self-governance give county authorities the right to determine the scope and structure of this care with regard to local conditions. Primary health care is provided in more than a thousand local health centres, polyclinics, and clinics throughout the country, where a patient should be treated unless hospitalization is needed. To this network there are attached over 70 hospitals and about 9 university hospitals, in which the most advanced diagnostic technologies and leading medical specialists are concentrated.

Counties have the right to set and collect county taxes to cover their costs. For performing their duties they may establish executive agencies and organizations (landstingsorganisationer).

Counties and municipalities may also transfer performance of their tasks to private-law entities, such as limited liability companies, as well as to foundations or non-profit organizations. Counties and municipalities may also merge with other counties or municipalities and create local associations that carry out tasks for their members; these are subjects of public law (Role 2000, p. 95). In a way, this is analogous to the “best practice” (or “best value”) model, which began to be applied in the 1990s in public administration in several Western European countries (especially on the basis of British experience). The relatively large range of tasks performed by municipalities meant that, apart from the private sector where approximately 66% of employed people worked at the beginning of the 1990s in Sweden, municipalities were the second largest employer, employing around 21% of the workforce. Counties accounted for only about 7% and state administration for the remaining about 6%. It was precisely in relation to this transfer of tasks to private-law entities that a significant decline in municipal staffing occurred (Riegler 1996).

If, despite this, Sweden is still sometimes described as a “country of municipalities” (Mesežnikov 1993, p. 10), this likely relates to the fact that both higher self-government levels have a substantially larger share than state administration in public budgets, public-sector employment, and public-administration output.

Conclusion

The fact that Sweden is a unitary state allows good cooperation between individual levels of public administration. “The entire system of state administration and self-government is expressed through continuous cooperation and many forms of execution and division of labour across all levels of administration and governance” (Práva 1994: 55). In Sweden this is further reinforced by a more horizontal than vertical arrangement of individual levels of public administration, which is a feature for which traces may more often be found in federal states. This creates a system combining the advantages of unitary and federal models of state organization:

High municipal autonomy (again, a feature more typical of federative states) is in practice made possible by the framework-based delegation of competencies. Swedish municipalities therefore do not have problems absorbing tasks transferred from the so-called mandatory sector—they can modify them in almost any way. This “freedom” is not absolute: on the one hand it is limited by law, which defines the framework of the assigned task, and on the other hand by municipalities’ financial capacity (in effect, tax capacity).

In reality, therefore, there is a different boundary between own and transferred tasks in Sweden. Transferred tasks are those municipalities must perform, but they do so at their own discretion, in the scope they define within the law, and in the quality and volume resulting from the municipality’s (in fact, its residents’) decision on the resources allocated to these tasks.

Original competencies are those tasks not imposed on municipalities by law. In such cases, a municipality has no legal mandate to levy taxes to perform these tasks. A municipality may generally levy taxes; it therefore depends on the municipality itself (more precisely, its residents) whether it considers a task not imposed by law important enough to justify financing it from “voluntary” local taxes. The result is a relatively small set of tasks that municipalities perform under original competencies, which is linked to the broad scope and flexibility of tasks carried out by municipalities under transferred competencies.

The limiting factor is municipal size in Sweden. Creating large municipalities was not a purposeless reform act but a decision that made possible achieving especially fiscal autonomy as a basis for genuine self-governance and the high autonomy mentioned above. There is likewise no self-referential logic to the further functioning of such large municipalities, because it does not mean the dissolution of municipal community into anonymity within a mass of tens of thousands or even hundreds or thousands of square kilometres. Joint decisions on local taxes and on tasks to be jointly ensured through those taxes significantly compensate for the low frequency—or in some cases absence—of personal contacts, which are usually characteristic of municipal communities. “Direct contact ... is created through the Swedish crown. ... The fact that Swedes pay taxes directly ... undoubtedly contributed to shaping a major feature of the Swedish way of life and Swedish national character, namely civic and social loyalty” (Mesežnikov 1993: 10).

Finally, the above factors mean that municipalities in Sweden make relatively limited use of the option to merge for joint performance of activities.

Author: doc. PhDr. Ing. Stanislav Konečný, PhD. MPA Katedra verejnej politiky a teórie verejnej správy, Fakulta verejnej správy, Univerzita P. J. Šafárika v Košiciach The author teaches at FVS UPJŠ, among other things, municipal policy, theory of public administration, public administration in European Union member states, etc. He has also worked for the Association of Towns and Municipalities of Slovakia and as director of the Public Administration Institute, and has published dozens of scientific studies at home and abroad in the field of municipal politics and public administration.

The study is the outcome of the VEGA 1/0290/20 project “Social justice and retirement savings in the Slovak Republic.”

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Swedish legal acts:

1974: 152 SFS Royal Decree on the Establishment of a New Instrument of Government (Kungörlese om beslutad ny regeringsform), amendment 1998: 1700 SFS

1979: 411 SFS Municipal Boundaries Act (Lagen om endringar i Sverige indelning i kommuner och landsting)

1991: 900 SFS Municipal Government Act (Kommunallag)

2001: 453 SFS Social Services Act (Socialtjänstlag)

2017:868 SFS Regulation on the County Executive (Förordning med länsstyrelseinstruktion)