County Administrative Board

Municipalities' activities form the basis for crisis management. But in some situations, the resources of individual municipalities are not enough. During a crisis, the County Administrative Board coordinates activities between the municipalities, regions (county councils) and authorities concerned, as well as companies and organisations, so that society's resources are used in the best possible way.

Monitoring the capacity to manage crises

In its preventive work - planning and preparing for effective crisis management - the County Administrative Board provides support to municipalities. Planning, risk and vulnerability analyses as well as training and exercises are an important part of the work. The County Administrative Board also monitors the municipalities' crisis management capacity, so that preparedness can be developed and improved.

The county administrative boards have geographical area responsibility at the regional level, which means that they must ensure that co-operation between authorities, municipalities and other actors within the county works before, during and after a crisis.

Area responsibility does not generally mean that the county administrative board should take over responsibility from any other actor. In special cases, however, the county administrative board can take over responsibility for the emergency services in one or more municipalities.

Officer on call

The officer on call at the county administrative boards is alerted to an incident by SOS alarm and then decides what measures must be taken immediately. The officer on call decides on behalf of the county executive until the county executive has met and a crisis management group is in place.

Dam failures and nuclear accidents

The county administrative boards are the supervisory authority for water activities and water installations, which includes dam safety. Preventing dam failures and dealing with those that do occur requires co-operation between those involved, which in addition to the county administrative boards are the dam owners and the municipalities.

The County Administrative Board is responsible for emergency services in the event of a radioactive release from a nuclear facility and appoints emergency managers. The clean-up after a release is also the responsibility of the County Administrative Board. All counties have a prepared organisation on standby with an emergency manager.

The county administrative boards in the counties with nuclear power plants, i.e. Uppsala, Kalmar and Halland counties, have a larger rescue service organisation than the other county administrative boards and always have an official on standby.

The nuclear power plants are responsible for all safety measures in the area of the nuclear power plant. In the event of an accident, the power plant alerts the County Administrative Board, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) and the police via SOS Alarm and warns the local residents.

The information comes from the County Administrative Boards.