The thesis describes the concept of municipality institutional structure. Historical development of local government, problems and urgent issues of local government after Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania of 24 December 2002 after which many substantial changes have taken place in the local government structure, one very significant of them being separation of representation and executive institutions and delimitation of their functions, are discussed in this thesis. A summary of changing of institutional structure of Lithuanian municipalities during 1990-2006 is provided, three principal models applied during that period are shortly described and analyzed. New provisions of Law on Local Self-Government and Law on Public Service are compared. Analyzed problems in local government are related with status of director of administration, mayor, member of municipality board, establishment of municipality institutions and enterprises, right of the public servants to work in another positions. Procedure of direct elections of mayor, internal organizational structure of municipalities and other legal aspects of organization of their activity are analyzed, and some problems of legal regulation of activity of these institutions are overviewed. As well the author of thesis submits proposals concerning principal institutional structure models of Lithuanian municipalities and local government election systems which could be chosen and applied in the future... [to full text]

At Constitutional level, legislation in South Africa entrenches the provision of food and water for all its citizens. In instances where citizens are unable to provide in these basic requirements for themselves, social assistance should be provided to ensure a healthy life for all. In this regard, legislation and Town Planning ordinances and regulations are in place to ensure that built-up environments in which we live and work are healthy and safe for all. However, this study revealed that food provisioning by community gardeners is peripheral in legislation, ordinances and regulations and the practice of urban agriculture is, in many instances, in conflict with the principle of safe and healthy food for all. Community gardeners/urban agriculturists are food farmers within the city who produce food for themselves and others without the checks and balances that are otherwise applicable to food brought into the city from outside. While food production on any piece of available land is vital for these community gardeners for their sustenance and survival, it could become a potential health hazard if no checks or testing measures are in place to ensure that the food being produced is safe for human consumption. The study sought the views and perceptions of community gardeners, residents, Environmental Health Practitioners and Town Planners in the eThekwini Metro region with regards to community gardening/urban agriculture and its impact on food provisioning to citizens. For data collection, a one-on-one interviewing survey method was used with all four groups and results were calculated and converted to average percentages and analysed. The results revealed that there was conflict between legislation, ordinances and regulations regarding the production of food in the built-up environment of the EThekwini Municipality. It was also revealed that there was no cohesive policy to control the production of food produced and sold by community gardeners in the study area. The need for control measures and regulations regarding food production and sale by community gardeners was highlighted. Moreover, where ineffective or none such measures or controls exist, a transparent and consultative process involving all stakeholders must take place in order to establish up viable and sustainable control measures. The people who will be most affected by these rules, namely the community gardeners, should be pivotal role players in the establishment of a sustainable urban agriculture policy. Recommendations to address the problems illuminated by the study are presented. / Environmental Sciences / Ph.D. (Environmental Management)

City marketing is a recently developed process to assist communities in achieving development oriented aims. Changing economic circumstances created such a need and marketing contributed key concepts such as marketing mix and auditing procedures while the process usually occurs within a town planning context. Case studies of applied city marketing reveal predominantly growth related goals, diverse strategies, successes and problems concerning community involvement, equity and effectiveness. South African local authorities have only recently recognised the need for marketing, but tend to limit their actions to promotion. The Verwoerdburg Town Council which successfully established its new central business district, Verwoerdburgstad, through city marketing, has lost its impetus and direction. The Town Council should re-evaluate its goals and methods in order to market itself successfully. / Civil & Chemical Engineering / M.Sc. (Geography)

The lack of smart resources management and servicescape strategies within the social housing sector in the late 1970s influenced the rise of successive Governments to consider the restructuring of the traditional ‘cumbersome’ Local Authority based structures and approaches toward more ‘enterprise focussed’ management organisations (Sharp & Jones 2012). This change in central Government policy encouraged Local Authorities to assign through outsourcing their housing stock (including associated asset management services) as part of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) via a process of compulsory competitive tendering to Housing Associations and/or set up Housing Trusts to increase the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of social housing and healthcare provision in the local community. As part of this modernisation process, all social housing and community care providers (also known as ‘Registered Social Landlords’ - RSLs) became subject to statutory audits, inspections and regulation, and performance management, to ensure the service quality delivery requirements. More recently, however, changes in the legislative framework have introduced choice-based letting policy, putting the customer first, service delivery and additionally RSLs are required to act as ‘Corporate Social Landlords’. These changes have focused RSLs attention on the need to sharpen service responsiveness, especially in the area of housing maintenance management (DETR 2000). Previous research (Holmes 1985; Spedding 1990; Johnston 1993; Stewart & Stoker 1995; Olubodun 1996, 2000, 2001; Sagoo et al. 1996; El-Haram & Horner 2002; Kangwa & Olubodun 2003, 2005; Boussabaine & Kirkham 2004; Jones & Cooper 2007; Prowle 2009; Babangida et al. 2012) has mainly concentrated on analysing maintenance management factors at the micro level; developing maintenance models and framework design for operational level. However, in the social housing sector, there have been no studies undertaken to date that have been focused on housing maintenance strategies – for example, how this is formulated, the key drivers of change and the impact on customer orientated service delivery. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors that drive the decision-making process in order to formulate responsive housing maintenance strategies and to develop a decision support model to improve customer service delivery of social housing provision. Research methodology Through a process of qualitative case study, pilot questionnaire surveys, workshops and qualitative in-depth interviews, the research has identified how the housing maintenance strategies are formulated and how social housing providers could enhance customer service delivery. The study comprised four phases in order to reflect the key objectives of the research. The first phase comprised a review of literature on social housing provision in the UK, identifying relevant changes in the legislative framework, an assessment of the challenges faced by RSLs and the key factors influencing performance of social housing provision. This phase also included undertaking a case study based on five different RSLs to examine the ‘real problems’ as to how and to what extent RSLs have adopted their organisation in order to meet the changes and challenges which they now face. The second phase investigated the key service factors impacting on housing maintenance strategy design and development through the use of a pilot study questionnaire directed to the asset managers (participating in the survey) and also included a selection of end users of the services (tenants). This phase identified the differences between the perceptions of service providers and the expectations of the service users. A key feature of this phase entailed conducting a workshop to disseminate findings of the pilot study. The workshop also formed a basis for ‘in-depth’ discussions for identifying the key factors, their descriptions, their interactions with each other, their inter-relationships with the tenant type, and their combined impact on formulating responsive housing maintenance strategy. The third phase of the study entailed eliciting qualitative data from the participants using the Repertory Grid (RG) ‘in-depth’ interview technique - a psychology tool in order to gain a deeper understanding of the core important ‘constructs’ and sub-constructs, their characteristics, their inter-relationships in the design and development of effective housing asset maintenance strategies. The fourth phase of this study entailed the development of a decision support system and the qualitative validation of the relationships found to exist between the constructs examined in phase three together with the testing of the model over a period of two months with four of the participating social housing providers. Findings The key findings arising from this research suggest that the design and development of value for money maintenance strategies within the public housing sector, are not solely based on physical factors related to the age, condition, location, construction type for example, but rather it was found that the majority of the asset management decisions made, were dependent upon a multivariate of key factors. The study identified 52 key factors, which when grouped together formed seven key cluster (Customer risk factors, Asset manager risk factors, Tenancy risk factors, Neighbourhood and community sustainability risk factors, Financial and economic risk factors, continuous service improvement risk factors and corporate risk factors) which are both ‘unique’ and ‘novel’ and are identified as having a direct influence on the formulation of housing maintenance strategy. These factors should not be considered in isolation and are more akin to the business success factors. The business ‘Balanced Scorecard’ (BSC) was evaluated and used as the basis for a ‘best fit’ model which was tested against four RSL to confirm its validity and its appropriateness. The responses obtained from these trials has indicated that the BSC provides a working tool capable of enhancing RSL organisational capabilities and service delivery effectiveness but also able to incorporate customer views regarding service delivery. This research makes major contributions to the existing limited pool of knowledge relating to strategic asset management within social housing sector and in addition, provides an insight into how housing maintenance strategy can be developed to incorporate feedback from customers (tenants) regarding the quality and responsive service delivery. The research also demonstrates the potential value of the BSC approach to the management tool capable of generating a competitive edge in line with government policy which is currently directed towards encouraging RSLs to adopt a commercial business approach to their operations. The research also demonstrates that the adoption of a decision support system in the form of BSC has the potential to provide useful assistance to RSLs intending to move away from the traditional public sector approaches to management (a more private sector orientated) approach to their operations. The research also shows that asset managers experience little difficulty in understanding the principles behind the BSC approach and its application. In addition, the cascading effect of BSC in housing maintenance strategy means that the strategy can be converted into measurable actions at the operational levels thereby providing a direct link between strategy and its implementation. Due to the absence of suitable benchmarking data, score rating derived from the RG were adopted by asset managers. This approach was found to be highly sensitive in assessing service delivery constructs.

Local government has to face new challenges and demands as they approach the 21st century, especially in view of the fact that the South African system of local government has been significantly altered since the first democratic local government elections which were held in November 1995 and July 1996. The integrated development plan (IDP) of a municipality reflects on the municipal council's vision for the long-term development of the municipality with special emphasis on the municipality's most critical development for service delivery purposes. The integrated development plan consists of separate plans developed for new initiatives to fit into the overall strategic planning framework as distinct from the normal operating and capital business plans for each of a Council's existing functions. The plans do not necessarily relate to completely new functions but may relate to changing the way a function operates, enhancing service levels of existing functions or even cutting back services provided by an existing function. Some IDP initiatives may stand apart as individual projects and some may have wide-spread impact across existing functional areas. Emanating from the above is a resultant conflict between administration management of a municipality and the rest of the workforce of the municipality. As a result of the lack of knowledge regarding conflict in a local authority within the framework of an integrated development plan for labour and the need for it to be managed correctly, it was decided to embark on this study and contribute to the existing knowledge on this subject. / Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Sociology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Le développement durable est devenu une notion structurante du champ social. Il est au centre de trois volets, chacun répondant aux crises qui ont touché le monde contemporain : le social, l’économique et l’environnement. Or, l’environnement est repris allègrement par les acteurs sociaux, et cela même aux dépens du social. Pourtant, ce volet est primordial dans la mesure où une réforme des rapports de pouvoir est essentielle à la résolution de la crise écologique.Or, si le volet social est élipsé au profit du volet environnement qui est verbalisé, la société qui se met en marche selon un « développement durable » est donc réduite à « respecter l’environnement ». S’ensuit une naturalisation dangereuse des rapports sociaux, et surtout des plus « naturels » d’entre eux, les rapports sociaux de sexe. Loin d’une réforme des rapports sociaux, le développement durable engendre une révolution naturaliste du sexe et du genre.Nous avons donc étudié les représentations sociales du développement durable au sein d’une collectivité territoriale pour révéler leur dynamique. En effet, celle-ci est exemplaire en matière de développement durable. Par ailleurs, elle est parcourue d’un fort clivage entre services technique et administratif, qui est aussi sexué puisque l’un est composé d’hommes et l’autre de femmes. Nous verrons comment l’objectivation du développement durable dans l’environnement assied la proéminence du technique et des hommes sur l’administratif et les femmes, mais aussi une naturalisation des rapports sociaux de sexe. / Sustainable development has become a structural notion of the social field. It’s at the cross of three volets, each of them answers to crises that impacted the contemporary world : social, economic and environment. But, the environment one is cheerfully used by social actors, at social one’s expense. Nevertheless, this volet is essential insofar as a reform of power relationships is necessary to ecological crise’s solution. But, if the social volet is silent to the advantage of the environment volet which is verbalized, the society which leans against a “sustainable development” is reduced to “respect the environment”. It follows that social relationships are naturalized, and above all the more natural of them, social relationships of sex. Far from a reform of social relationships, sustainable development generates a naturalist revolution of sex and gender.We studied social representations of sustainable development into a french local authority to come to light their dynamic. Indeed, this former is exemplary in sustainable development empowerment. Otherwise, it’s made of a strong dichotomy between technical and administrative departments, which is sexual because the first is composed of men and the second of women. We’ll see how sustainable development’s objectivation in environment confirms the domination of technical and men on administrative and women, and moreover a naturalisation of social relationships of sex.

A partir des années 1990 l’administration sanitaire s’est inscrite dans un mouvement de régionalisation ayant conduit à l’installation des agences régionales de santé. Ces structures, ainsi que les méthodes choisies pour réorganiser le pilotage régional des affaires sanitaires, marquent l’importation dans le secteur de la santé des tendances ayant touché la rénovation de l’appareil administratif français.Tout au long du XXème siècle, la territorialisation des politiques publiques a suivi le tempo d’une valse à deux temps, mêlant déconcentration et décentralisation. Dès lors, il est possible de se questionner sur la place accordéeaux collectivités territoriales dans le pilotage sanitaire régional. L’investissement particulier de certaines collectivités, comme l’ancienne Région Nord-Pas de Calais, alimente d’ailleurs ces interrogations.Après avoir observé la place accordée aux collectivités dans l’architecture sanitaire, nous nous interrogerons sur les raisons pouvant expliquer celle-ci, tout particulièrement en ce qui concerne la Région. A bien des égards les choix opérés apparaissent à contre temps des dynamiques juridiques et politiques sur lesquelles s’appuie aujourd’hui la décentralisation, envisagée globalement. Nous essaierons de comprendre les raisons pouvant expliquer un traitement différencié des questions de la santé, avant d’envisager ce que pourrait être une décentralisation sanitaire ; c’est-à-dire, en somme, un aboutissement de la régionalisation sanitaire. / From the 1990’s health administration became part of a regionalization movement resulting in the setting up of the regional health agencies. These structures, and the methods adopted to reorganize the regional steering of health matters, marked the importing into the heath sector of the trends involved in the renovation of the French administrative machinery.Throughout the 20th century, the « territorialization » of the public policies followed the tempo of a two-step waltz, with a mix of « deconcentration » and decentralization. It is therefore possible to question the place given to thelocal authorities in the steering of regional health matters. The specific investment made by some authorities, such as the former Nord-Pas de Calais Region, raises further questions.After having observed the place given to the local authorities in the health architecture, we will look into the reasons for this, especially as regards the “Region”. In many respects the choices made do not appear to be in step with the legal and political dynamics on which decentralization, seen from a global standpoint, is based. We will try to understand the reasons behind this differential treatment of health issues, before looking ahead to what healthsector decentralization might be; i.e. in short, the completion of the health regionalization process.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2017-02-10T10:58:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 José Renato de Oliveira Barcelos_.pdf: 31454294 bytes, checksum: 3417d857350ed196af22bcf4186a3b22 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-10T10:58:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 José Renato de Oliveira Barcelos_.pdf: 31454294 bytes, checksum: 3417d857350ed196af22bcf4186a3b22 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-30 / Nenhuma / A proteção da integridade e da diversidade do patrimônio genético e cultural brasileiro foi o objeto central deste trabalho. E neste patrimônio estão indiscutivelmente incluídas não só as sementes, em especial as sementes crioulas enquanto unidades regenerativas primordiais da biodiversidade, como também os conhecimentos tradicionais associados como expressão cultural dos povos tradicionais. Esta proteção se faz urgente em razão da qualidade dos desafios que estão colocados às sociedades contemporâneas no cenário atual de alta complexidade no campo da agricultura. Na cena contemporânea da tecnologia reificada, o espectro da patrimonialização da agricultura paira sobre a segurança deste patrimônio genético. E o que é ainda mais perturbador, sobre a segurança dos processos ecológicos essenciais – as bases da vida – os quais a Constituição da República quer preservados e restaurados pela letra do inciso I do § 1° do artigo 225, impondo essa incumbência do Poder Público a fim de assegurar o direito fundamental ao meio ambiente sadio e ecologicamente equilibrado, em uma perspectiva de equidade intergeracional. Na compreensão de que a tecnologia – sobretudo a biotecnologia – não é neutra, mas carregada de valores e resultante de um processo histórico da mais alta relevância, incluindo uns e excluindo outros, em que a segurança e a soberania alimentar dos povos é componente essencial, este trabalho quer chamar a atenção para o fato de que sob o manto da revolução tecnológica, uma esfera supostamente neutra, podem estar ocultas intenções de apropriação da natureza em nome do lucro. Mas não só isso: quer também advertir para o fato de que o Estado Brasileiro está faltando com a sua responsabilidade de proteção ambiental, humana e animal quando permite a quebra do resguardo ao Princípio da Precaução e às normas de biossegurança e avaliação e gestão de riscos no que diz com o tema da liberação comercial de organismos geneticamente modificados – OGM’s e seus derivados. O trabalho realizou essa tarefa pela lente da crítica e da observação empírica dos pareceres técnicos lançados nos pedidos de liberação comercial de organismos geneticamente modificados – OGM’s pelos cientistas integrantes da Comissão Técnica Nacional de Biossegurança – CTNBio, atualmente o mais importante domínio em biossegurança no Brasil. O exame da racionalidade discursiva vigorante nesse colegiado foi facilitado pela utilização e ferramentas de análise de discurso, mas sobretudo só foi possível pela utilização do relevante conceito teórico denominado de Zona de Autarquia. Por meio deste conceito, foi possível mapear – e revelar – espaços de arbitrariedade no interior da CTNBio, em que a democracia é deficitária e cede lugar a álibis discursivos e operacionais destituídos de fundamentação racional. / Protecting the integrity and diversity of Brazil's genetic and cultural heritage was the central subject of this work. And this heritage is undoubtedly included not only the seeds, especially creole (native) seeds as primordial regenerative units of biodiversity, as well as the associated traditional knowledge for a cultural expression of traditional peoples. This protection becomes urgent because the quality of the challenges in which are set the contemporary societies in the present scenario of high complexity in the field of agriculture. In the contemporary scene of reified technology, the specter of agriculture patrimonialization hangs over the safety of this genetic heritage. And what is even more disturbing about the safety of essential ecological processes, the foundation of life, in which the Republic Constitution wants to be preserved and restored - by the letter of item I of § 1 of article 225 - imposing this power of incumbency public to ensuring the fundamental right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, in an intergenerational equity perspective. In the understanding of that technology - especially biotechnology - is not neutral, but value-loaded and the result of a historical process of the highest relevance, including some and excluding others, where security and food domination of the people is an essential component, this work wants to draw attention to the fact that under the cover of technological revolution, a supposedly neutral level can be hidden veiled the nature intention of appropriation in the profit behalf. But not only that: we also want to advert to the fact that the Brazilian state is failing in its responsibility to environmental protection, human and animal when it allows the breaking of the guard to the precautionary principle and rules of biosafety and also assessment and management risk when it comes to the subject of commercial release of genetically modified organisms - GMOs and their derivatives. The work accomplished this task by critical lens and empirical observation of technical reports launched in applications for commercial release of genetically modified organisms - GMOs members by scientists from the National Technical Biosafety Commission - CTNBio, currently the most important area in biosafety in Brazil. The examination of invigorating discursive rationality in this collegiality was facilitated by use and speech analysis tools, but above all, it was only possible by the use of relevant theoretical concept called the local authority area. Through this concept was possible to map - and reveal - arbitrary spaces inside the CTNBio, where democracy is deficient and gives way to discursive and operational alibis deprived of rational foundation.

<p>Enligt lagen om kommunal energiplanering ska varje svensk kommun ha en energiplan för tillförsel för tillförsel och användning av energi. Huruvida energiplanering är ett bra sätt att styra det kommunala energisystemet är dock omdebatterat. Denna avhandling studerar innehåll i, och implementering av, ett antal svenska kommunala energiplaner. Energiplanernas effektivitet studeras på två nivåer: uppfyllelse av mål och visioner i planerna, samt hur detta bidrar till att uppfylla de nationella energipolitiska målen.</p><p>Forskningen baseras på tre studier: en studie av innehållet i tolv energiplaner från Östergötland, en studie av mål och visioner i sju energiplaner och hur energisystem utvecklats efter energiplanerna antagits, samt en fallstudie av Kungälvs kommun där mål och måluppfyllelse studerats mer utförligt. Innehåll och målformuleringar i energiplanerna har analyserats med avseende på miljö, effektiv energianvändning och systemnivå. Mål och måluppfyllelse har även analyserats med avseende på aktörer.</p><p>Resultaten visar på att de studerade energiplanerna har smal systemsyn och att de miljöanalyser som finns i planerna är undermåliga. Energiplaneringen har varit effektiv till viss del. Bäst måluppfyllelse har kommunerna när det gäller mål på en relativt låg systemnivå och när det är kommunen själv som äger frågan, exempelvis fjärrvärmeutbyggnad och energieffektivisering av kommunens lokaler. När det gäller utvecklingens bidrag till de nationella energipolitiska målen är resultaten varierande: användning av biobränslen har ökat avsevärt, medan självförsörjningsgraden på el bara ökat något. Bäst är utvecklingen när det gäller minskade koldioxidutsläpp.</p><p>Baserat på bristerna som upptäckts i de studerade energiplanerna och dess implementering förs en diskussion kring möjligheter att öka energiplaneringens effektivitet och vidga systemsynen. Förbättringar som diskuteras är att stärka kopplingen till fysisk planering, och att inkludera medborgarmedverkan och miljöbedömningar. Om kopplingen till energifrågor stärks i översiktlig planering och om även privata aktörer kommer till tals under planeringsprocessen, skulle detta kunna underlätta implementering av energiplanerna. Miljöbedömningar i sin tur kan bidra med en vidare systemsyn om mer relevanta mål i planerna. Slutligen föreslås att ramverket för miljöbedömning av planer och program (2001/42/EC) kan användas vid energiplanering eftersom det framhåller vikten av breda analyser, samråd med privata aktörer och miljöbedömningar.</p> / <p>Swedish municipalities are required to produce a municipal energy plan for energy supply and use. Whether energy planning is suitable to manage local energy systems, however, is subject to debate. This thesis explores municipal energy planning and development of local energy systems after energy plans were adopted to examine whether energy planning is effective. The effectiveness of energy planning is studied on two levels: in terms of whether goals in energy plans were implemented, and whether energy planning contributes to fulfilling national energy policy goals.</p><p>The research is based on three studies. In the first, the scope of twelve municipal energy plans from a Swedish region was assessed. In the second study, goals and visions in seven energy plans were analysed and compared to the development of the local energy systems. The third case involved Kungälv municipality, where the implementation of goals in its energy plan was studied more thoroughly. Scopes and goals in the energy plans were analysed from three perspectives: the environment, energy efficiency and the systems level. Goals and development were also analysed from an actor’s perspective.</p><p>The results show that the scopes of the studied energy plans have narrow systems boundaries, and that the environmental analyses presented in the plans are very basic. Energy planning was found to have been fairly effective in terms of fulfilment of goals in energy plans. Most positive developments are for goals on a relatively low systems level when the local authority owns the issue, for example district heating expansion and energy efficiency measures in public buildings. When it comes to contributing to national energy policy goals, results vary; use of biomass has increased, but selfsufficiency in electricity supply has increased only slightly. The most favourable development when it comes to energy-related emissions is the reduction of carbon dioxide.</p><p>Based on shortcomings identified in the studied energy plans and implementation, possibilities to increase the effectiveness and widen the scope of energy planning are discussed. Improvements are discussed in terms of urban planning as well as participative planning, and with respect to the environmental assessment of plans. If energy issues are included in urban planning and a participatory planning approach is used, this could facilitate the implementation of energy plans. Including environmental assessment could facilitate wide scopes and more relevant goals. It is also proposed that the EU framework for environmental assessment of plans and programmes (2001/42/EC) can be used for energy planning, since it includes a comprehensive approach, public participation, and environmental assessment.</p>

<p><strong><em>Sammanfattning</em></strong><strong></strong></p><p>De ensamkommande barnen som kommer till Sverige befinner sig i en utsatt situation. Efter den förste juli 2006 lades ansvaret för barnens boende och omvårdnad på kommunerna efter överenskommelse med migrationsverket. De ensamkommande barnen blir tilldelade en god man, som får ansvaret för barnen i föräldrarnas frånvaro. En av de gode männens uppgift är att företräda barnet i asylprocessen.</p><p>Tidigare forskning som belyser hur mottagningen i en kommun kan se ut, eller hur de vuxna som arbetar med barnen upplever sin situation var svårt att finna. Idag finns främst rapporter från ideella organisationer som exempelvis Rädda Barnen.</p><p>Under hösten 2008 gjordes intervjuer med ansvarig tjänsteman på kommun X, boende personal på ett PUT- boende för ensamkommande barn, samt gode män. Detta för att få en förståelse för hur barnens situation kan se ut i en kommun och hur ansvaret är fördelat mellan berörda parter. Utifrån intervjuerna visade det sig att det saknades klara direktiv och regler mellan de olika instanserna, vilket kan leda till en ostrukturerad tillvaro för de ensamkommande barnen. Vidare framkom att inga formella krav fanns för att bli god man, inte heller någon specifik utbildning innan de går in som vårdnadshavare för de ensamkommande barnen. Detta placerar barnen i ännu en utsatt situation, då de gode männen har tilldelats ansvaret att beakta barnens rättigheter, ekonomi, samt juridiska aspekter. </p><p>Nyckelord: ensamkommande barn, kommunens ansvar, god man, asylprocess</p><p><strong><p> </p></strong></p> / <p><strong><em>Abstract </em></strong></p><p>The unaccompanied children who come to Sweden are in an exposed position. After the first of July 2006 the responsibility for the children's housing and caring lays on the local authority after agreement with immigration authorities. The unaccompanied child gets an allocated good man, which gets the responsibility for the children in the parents' absence. One of the good men's responsibilities is to represent the child in the asylum process.</p><p>Earlier research that elucidates how the reception can looks like in a local authority where difficult to find. How the adult who works with these children experience their situation, where also difficult to find. Today, there are principally reports from non-profit organizations, for example: "save the children" in Sweden.</p><p>During the autumn 2008 interviews were done with a responsible official in local authority X, housing personnel on PUT- living for unaccompanied children, and good men. To be able to get an understanding for how the children's situation can look like in a local authority and how the responsibility is distributed between concerned parties. On the basis of the interviews, it showed clear directives and rules were missing between the different authorities, which can lead to an unstructured life for the unaccompanied children. Furthermore, no formal requirements or other specific education is necessary in order to become a good man and there by make a commitment to get custody for the unaccompanied children. This puts the children in another exposed situation, since the good men have been allocated the responsibility to pay attention to the children's rights, economy, and legal aspects.</p><p>Keywords: unaccompanied children, the local authority, good man, asylum process</p><p> </p>