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The public sector utilises approximately 20 per cent of the total floor space in Sweden. Half this space is owned by the municipalities and is used for schools, child care, geriatric care, etc. The cost of properties in municipal budgets is rising at the same time as there is a backlog of maintenance and the utilisation of premises is low. A number of measures aimed at making the management of premises in the public sector more efficient and effective are described. The problems are not only technical and economic in nature but also, above all, organisational and political: how to create the dynamics of and incentives for economising on property resources, and how to choose between the cost of welfare production and the quality of premises?

While Norway, Sweden, and Denmark share many historic, political, and cultural features, their state systems and public administration exhibit important differences. Likewise, Nordic administrative sciences reflect a significant degree of ethnocentric diversity. Although as a whole, since the 1960s, Scandinavian academic public administration has witnessed rapid growth, an emphasis on local–regional government, and highly sophisticated scientific-empirical research, as opposed to professional training or narrow application of technical–legal methodologies.