Administration

Regulations about the organising of the administration and decision-making in the municipality can mainly be found in the local government act and administrational law.

Municipal Organisation
According to 121 § in the constitution, the municipal organisation should be based on self-government for the inhabitants. The highest body of the municipality, the town council, receives its authority from the inhabitants at the municipal election. The town council decides what bodies the municipality should have and how the authority and the duties are distributed between the authorities. According to the local government act, each municipality should have an administrative regulation containing regulations about the administrational- and decision-making procedures. The authority of the decision-making bodies and local government officers are determined in the administrative regulation.

According to 17 § in the local government act, the bodies of the municipality are as follows:

  • town council
  • town executive
  • local authority committees and their sub-committees
  • management boards and their sub-committees
  • as well as commissions


In the local government act a decision-making body is municipal authority with several members. Apart from the official decision-making bodies, the municipality can also have informal assisting or preparatory bodies that lack official positions as decision-making bodies, e.g. management groups and different committees. Important authority such as decision-making cannot be transferred to management groups or committees. Town council groups are also not part of the municipal bodies.

The composition of the bodies
Aside from the town council, the local government act does not specify how many members the bodies should have. The council can freely decide on the size of the bodies. Usually an odd number of members are elected to ensure that the number of votes is odd when voting on single matters during meetings. In its administrative regulation the town councillors may stipulate that only local councillors and deputy councillors can be elected to the town executive or a specified local authority committee.