Preschool Department

The Preschool Department was established on 1 July 2023.

The department will work to

• strengthen equality in the City’s preschool operations
• strengthen work on quality and operational development
• conduct supervision of independent preschools and pedagogical care institutions 
• make decisions on new approvals for independent operations.

The Preschool Department coordinates overall work on quality and equality for the City’s preschools. The Department is tasked with leading the development of overall issues for preschool operations in the City. The Department is responsible for the supervision and licensing of independent preschools, while the city districts are responsible for the provision of municipal preschools.

The Preschool Department, together with the City District Departments, will pursue overall development issues for the City’s preschool operations. This is partly about educational activities for all children. It is also about issues that are important to the City’s employees, such as skills development and occupational health and safety issues.

The elected representatives on the Preschool Committee take decisions on what the Department should work with in this area. The Preschool Department then implements the Committee’s decisions.

Preschool Committee

Organisation

The work of the Preschool Department is led by Director of Preschools Gunilla Davidsson. The Department consists of three divisions with responsibility for operations within each area.

Administrative Division

The Administrative Division works across departmental boundaries and provides support to executive teams and employees in areas such as

• committees and registry
• finance
• HR
• IT
• communication.

City-Wide Development Division

The City-Wide Development Division is responsible, in close collaboration with the City District Departments, for coordinating City-wide development work for the City’s preschools, open preschools, introductory preschools and pedagogical care institutions.

Public Authority Division

The Public Authority Division is responsible for strengthening and developing systematic quality work at an overall level in collaboration with the City District Departments.

The Division produces an annual report for the City’s preschools, regardless of by whom they are managed. The Division is also responsible for examining and approving the operations of independent actors.

Supervision and Approval Unit

This Unit is responsible for licensing accountable authorities that wish to run independent preschools or pedagogical care institutions under private management. In order to check that those operations that have been granted approval run preschools or pedagogical care institutions continue to meet the requirements for running their operation, the Unit carries out continuous supervision of their activities.

The Supervision and Approval Unit also deals with matters including the following:

• additional amounts for independent preschools and pedagogical care institutions
• rental compensation
• care during inconvenient working hours
• handling complaints concerning independent or privately managed operations.