Sweden is by tradition a unitary bu

Sweden is by tradition a unitary but conspicuously decentraliesd country in which the central government exercises only ministerial (policy-making) functions and comparatively few administrative functions are performed by self-standing (semi-autonomous) (central) state agencies. Most public tasks are fulfilled by the two-tier elected local government structure in which the counties are responsible for the pubic health services, while the municipalities fulfil a broad scope of responsibilities, including education, social services and public utilities. The autonomy of the municipalities (as well as of the counties) rests,not least, on their traditional power to levy their own taxes, since 1991 in the form of the local tax on earned income and pension income (see Norton,1994:303ff.). The lion's share of the local government expendities are covered by such local taxes (55 per cent in the municipalities and 81 per cent in the counties-in1993, for details see Haggroth et al., 1983:74). Reflecting the multi-function profile of Swedish local government, almost 60 per cent of the total number of the country's public sector workforce is municipal and another 25 per cent county personnel, while merely 17 per cent are employed by the state (central government and the central state agencies-1994 figures from OECD, quoted in Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000: 44). In 1974 central government carried out a territorial reform which, as result of massive analgamation, arrived at an average size of 30,000 inhabitants (see Norton,1994:40 ff.). In international comparisons Sweden has been ranked in the group with the politically and functionally strongest local government forms in Europe (see Hesse and Sharpe, 1991) and, one should add, financially most independent.
Sweden has pursued ' traditional' reform strategies on a number of scores.
Following the 'free commune experiments' of the 1980s, Sweden's already remarkably decentralised intergovernmental setting has been further decentralised by transferring additional functions from the state level to the municipalities, particularly in the fields of social services and education ( see Premfors,1998). Hence, the traditional milti-function model of local government has been further accentuated.