Swedish municipalities have extensive responsibilities in the implementation of Swedish welfare policy, and in local government, a variety of decisions are made on a daily basis that affect their residents. These decisions are made by elected officials, delegated to their staff, or handled within the framework of “execution”. The ways in which these decisions are made have consequences. Decisions in the sense of the Local Government Act are decisions made by elected officials or by employees on delegation. Those decisions must be documented and can undergo a legal examination by the residents of the municipality. The same requirements do not apply to actions that are instead handled within the framework of “execution”. 

By legislation and practice follows that execution consists of the preparatory and executive actions where there is a lack of room for independent assessment. The line between decisions in the sense of the Local Government Act and execution is considered unclear, and the legislator has provided more or less conflicting statements over the years. 

There is evidence that an increasing number of actions are being categorized as “execution”, and that the extent and nature of them vary between municipalities. This means that the residents of one municipality can follow the decision-making process of a matter and conduct a review of the legality of the decision, while the residents of a neighboring municipality may not have the same opportunities. This thesis examines how leading elected officials and leading civil servants in local government define “execution” and how they legitimize the boundary to “decisions in the sense of the Local Government Act”. 

The results show that there is no uniform definition of execution among the elected officials and civil servants who participated in the study, and that the term ”independent assessment” is notably absent in the daily operations of the participants in this study. Rather, a more pragmatic attitude vis-á-vis ”execution” is observed, with varying definitions depending on the context. The boundary to “decisions in the sense of the Local Government Act” is drawn in different ways, where factors like political dignity, monetary limits and the access to transparency can be crucial. When elected officials and civil service workers legitimize the boundary, democratic values such as professionalism, efficiency, democracy and local self-governing are used.