Quality assurance of cultural heritage in public procurement

The aim of this study is to show how quality assurance of cultural heritage is made in public procurement. This has been done with an initial review of the current legislation, law on public procurement, which then is applied on a case study of one specific Municipality, Mölndals Stad. The case study is partly based on interviews and policy announcement and partly on two in-depth case studies. The first in-depth case study reviews tender documents regarding arrangements of cultural heritage and the second in-depth case study reviews the state of one specific property. These two in-depth case studies focus only on the cultural heritage in Mölndal that are pointed out as important cultural environments by the city council. The Law on public procurement, which acquired legal force 2008, states that all Swedish authorities are bound to procure goods and services to a rock-bottom price, or to the most economically advantageous tender. This commands a high demand on the responsible purchaser, and the tender documents, to ensure that the cultural value of the heritage doesn’t become corrupted. The Case study shows that quality assurance is made when the responsible purchaser is aware of the necessity to do it. But it also shows that this isn’t always the case. The estate manager of each property is given a big responsibility to ensure that the need for quality assurance is given when needed. The result of the study is that quality assurance for cultural heritage are possible to make in public procurement, but the Municipality need to improve their guidelines for when quality assurances are necessaryUppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen i Kulturvård, Bebyggelseantikvariskt program 15 hp Institutionen för kulturvård Göteborgs universitet 2014:2