Ola Mattisson

Senior lecturer

Local Government Cooperation : A Better Way to Respond to Conditions?

Author

Ola Mattisson

Editor

Irvine Lapsley
Hans Knutsson

Summary, in English

Studies have shown that all Swedish municipalities are involved in cooperation with other municipalities, and most frequent in soft forms like agreements. Often each municipality have full control of its activities and then join forces with others on the margin. However, in this chapter it is showed that this situation is undergoing a change. Municipalities facing new a new landscape are looking for increased cooperation as a means to deal with the challenges. Over the last decade a great number of new and jointly owned municipal organizations have been created, and in many cases with shared responsibilities. These new, and bigger organizations, are created predominantly of strategic choices, capacity to deliver and the supply of competence. Cost efficiency is no longer the major argument for joining forces. A more extensive cooperation in the form of joint organizations brings challenges for the municipalities. It creates new structures for activities and for decision making causing a number of new issues to deal with when organizing for municipal services. Experiences and implications of these issues are discussed in this chapter.

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