Table 3 Changes in 17 municipal technical service worksites during intervention project

• Five road maintenance sites were involved. During spring 1999 two of the five sites were closed down and the employees transferred to the three surviving sites, partly across intervention/control status. Autumn 1999 the remaining sites were merged with the road construction department.

• One park maintenance site was included. In 1998 the nine existing districts were merged into five. In 2000 these were merged into one unit, and redistributed into 8 "foreman areas" approximately equal to the original nine districts. In 2002 park maintenance was merged with street cleaning into "town service", sub-sectioned into five districts each with independent economy and administration.

• Two workshops (auto repair and metal works) remained undivided and unmerged but lost activities and employment due to the new intra-municipal accounting principles and preparations for tendering of activities.

• Two cemeteries and three pumping stations remained relatively stable, and were neither prepared for privatisation nor outsourced.

• Four administrative offices involved in planning and accounting of the above work had some staff moved to a central "buying" office and others distributed out to the local "selling" units as part of preparation for outsourcing. All offices were so heavily reorganised that at the end of 1998 it was formally decided to leave out the offices from follow-up in the study.