Tillsynens roll i Sverige - En fallstudie på vilka faktorer som påverkar kommunernas tillsynsarbete

Sammanfattning

The regulatory oversight in Sweden is based on chapter 26 of the Swedish environmental code, together with national environmental goals. Even though there are guidelines the municipalities carry out the oversight in different ways. The aim of this study is to examine how municipal environmental supervision in the waste sector is carried out, and to analyse which legal and organisational factors enable or limit the use of supervision as a policy instrument. The study is based on a qualitative case study of municipal supervision of VafabMiljö’s waste management activities. The empirical material consists of semi-structured interviews with municipal environmental inspectors and document analysis of municipal policy and planning documents. The results of the study show that there are a few aspects that affect the regulatory oversight in municipalities. Today the focus for inspectors is to control the companies self-controlling and other permits that are relevant. From the interviews, it is brought up that they don't have the right resources to develop the regulatory oversight to a policy instrument. Furthermore, there is a big gap between the national guidelines and what the municipalities can do to implement these with their lack of higher support and slim resources. Even though the environmental law can be complicated and difficult to implement, it still works as a strategic tool for the inspectors. The study shows that the potential of supervision as a policy instrument needs to be strengthened. The implementation gap needs to be addressed so the municipalities can develop their work further in line with the environmental law and goals.