They told me that they do not give instructions to the municipalities although they do organise conferences, give lectures, give advice etc. For example they were just now organising a seminar on the Use of social media and legal questions related to it. It seems that many similar ways are in use as in Finland. Yet I got the impression from their answer that the local authorities act more independently in Sweden than here.
Here in Finland Kuntaliitto also follows quite closely the development of the PR sector in the municipalities and compiles statistics on all sorts of things (eg. budgets, PR and communication strategies, number of PR professionals...) In Sweden the SKL does not have statistics on how municipalities manage their PR and communication work (which makes it impossible for me to compare the resources and number of PR professionals for example, like I had wished to do). Had I wanted this information, I would have had to ask each municipality separately.
The Swedish system seems to give the local level much more freedom (of course I have to notice that there might be another actor giving these instructions, for example the state). I find this a very interesting cultural difference that would be interesting to study further. I don’t even try to make any assumptions on the reasons for it here – I have neither enough information nor space. But it would be interesting to know if there are significant differences in the PR and communication functions of the Swedish municipalities and their Finnish counterparts.
