ABSTRACT
The 1980s and 1990s saw no dramatic changes in the Danish local government system (Kjær 2007). The period is characterised by consolidation and stabilisation (Blom-Hansen 1999: 35). A steady decentralisation of functions from central to local level characterises the late 1980s and the early 1990s. However, huge changes characterise local government from the middle of the present decade (2005). Since then, Denmark has introduced and implemented its biggest amalgamation reform of local government in thirty-five years, even though a commission in 1998 concluded that the division of work between the national, regional and local level was appropriate, and the home secretary in 2002 stated that the government had no plans to change the structure of the municipalities (Mouritzen 2004). By 2007 the very same home secretary had merged 270 municipalities into ninety-eight municipalities. Changes in functions have been implemented based on the argument that bigger units will be more efficient and sustainable with regard to service production. Some functions are being decentralised to municipalities from the national and regional levels while others have been removed from the municipalities and placed at the national level. This chapter describes the changes in functions, access and discretion between central and local government in the wake of this structural reform.
