Landsting (Sweden)
Landsting is the Swedish name for a provincial parliament. The provincial assembly is not a parliament, but an administrative unit that administers its territory according to the principles of local self- government.
Local self-government in Sweden has been carried out on two levels since 1862: the municipality and the provincial council. The provincial parliament takes on tasks that are too extensive for a single municipality.
The territorial boundaries of the provincial assembly usually coincide with those of an administrative province (Swedish län ), but administratively both are completely independent of each other, as the provincial government performs tasks of state administration, while the provincial assembly is an organ of local self-government.
organization
Today there are 20 provincial parishes. In the Gotland County , to which only one municipality belongs, the municipality of Gotland also has the responsibilities of the Landsting.
The decision-making body is the provincial parliament (Swedish landstingsfullmäktige ), which is elected every four years and elects a board (Swedish landstingsstyrelse ) consisting of the provincial parliamentary councils (Swedish landstingsråd ). The state parliament also elects one of the provincial councilors to chair the board and one or two councilors to be deputies. The further organizational structure can be decided by the respective provincial parliament itself according to the municipal law of 1992. The provincial parliaments have no legislative function, but are part of the executive as local self-governing bodies.
In 1999, the Landstinge of the provinces of Skåne län and Västra Götalands län were given an extended area of responsibility compared to the other Landstingen. In 2011 this regulation was finally established and at the same time extended to the Landsting of the province of Halland County and the municipality of Gotland . These four Landstinge are called Region . From 2015 further Landstinge are to be upgraded to regions.
tasks
The tasks of the provincial parliaments within the framework of local self-government include: a .:
- Health care and nursing, including public dental treatment
- public transport
- regional economic development
- regional cultural policy
Among these tasks, health care and nursing occupy the dominant place (over 80% of the total cost).
Finances
More than half of the tasks of the provincial parish are financed by the collection of local income taxes. In 2015, the highest municipal income tax rate for municipalities and provincial parishes was 34.70% (Municipality of Dorotea ) and the lowest was 29.19% (Municipality of Vellinge ). In addition, the provincial parliaments receive state subsidies and levy taxes for certain services.
On the expenditure side, health care and nursing is the largest area at 83% of gross costs.
Advocacy
Since 1920, the Swedish Provincial Diets were organized in the Swedish Provincial Parliament Association (swed. Landstingsförbundet ), which was supposed to represent their interests primarily vis-à-vis the state. This was merged in 2007 with the community association. This new association, which represents both municipalities and provincial parishes, is called Sveriges kommuner och landsting (SKL) . In addition to his public relations work and participation in the legislative process as an expert, he also offers its members a comprehensive service and acts as an employer representative to the employees at provincial parliaments.