The Social Democratic Party of Eskilstuna outlines its vision and policies for the municipality from 2011-2014. It aims to promote liberty and equality for all residents. Key priorities include improving education, creating sustainable development through renewable energy and public transport, ensuring the right to work, developing culture and recreation, providing social services and housing, and engaging in modern urban planning. The party seeks voters' mandate to continue leading the municipality and implementing its manifesto over the next four years.

1. ELECTION
MANIFESTO
Short version | 2011-2014
The social democratic
labour party of
Eskilstuna

2. Liberty and Equality – the way forward for Eskilstuna
The Social Democratic Party is a party that strives for liberty and
equality. We have a concept of another society than that in which we
live today. We wish to make Eskilstuna a town of opportunity. It is a
community where people can grow, but not at the expense of other
people or the environment. Where women and men have equal power
and opportunity to shape their lives and influence social progress. We
would like this society to be characterised by solidarity between
people, where one man’s liberty is not another man’s tyranny. A social
structure that rests upon the principle from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs.
We intend to pursue a policy that creates opportunity and effectively
improves people’s living conditions. The right to work, education and a
rewarding recreational and cultural life are the cornerstones of our
manifesto. We put people and the environment before economic
interests. We are convinced that welfare financed by general taxation is
the best way to create security and freedom for people. Individual
security is security for all.
Below follows our manifesto containing the policies that we wish to
pursue if given a fresh mandate to continue leading Eskilstuna
Municipality. We realise the enormity of implementing everything in
four shorts years, but we intend to give it our best shot. We seek your
mandate to continue developing Eskilstuna through a democratic and
transparent leadership.

3. Good and equal education for all
• Strive to improve pupil achievement and the educational
environment.
• Gradually increase school capitation allowance to national level to
secure pupils’ right to a good and progressive education.
• During the mandate period, achieve the goal of reducing
preschool classes to an average of 17.5 children.
• Let the desire to learn be the guiding light in all educational work
in Eskilstuna.
• Take a critical and restrictive stance to independent schools.
• Increase the chances for pupils to, through individual choice,
adapt their education to their interests and way of learning.
• Increase the numbers of educational and pupil welfare staff.
• Increase the number of adults in schools by reintroducing school
aides for a trial period to be evaluated after the mandate period.
• Promote a gender perspective in all educational activities in order
to counteract traditional gender roles and allow all individuals to
be unique in their own right.
• Link together Swedish as a foreign language with first language
teaching in preschool.
• Strive to integrate an environmental perspective into all
educational activities and, together with the pupils, make school
more climate-smart.
• Adopt a HBT perspective in all educational activities.
• Invest in municipal adult secondary education, apprenticeships
and vocational training.
• Introduce local school inspectors who will give taxpayers and
local decision-makers a true picture of the quality and content of
all schools.

4. A long-term sustainable Eskilstuna
• Invest in energy efficient buildings.
• Make public transport more attractive by lowering prices and
improving frequency.
• Improve communications with local trains and buses.
• Through close cooperation with local food producers, increase
the municipality’s purchase of ecological and locally grown
produce.
• Meet the increased interest for home-grown food by providing
more allotments.
• Continue to invest in biogas to break the oil dependency;
Eskilstuna will be developed into a biogas node in the region.
• Encourage the small-scale production of renewable energy.
• Work strategically with planning and enabling the increased
production of wind power and solar energy.
• Invest in more and better paths and cycle lanes throughout
Eskilstuna municipality.
• Invest in responsible rainwater management solutions.
• Create the prerequisites for green, sustainable jobs.

5. The right to work
• Continue to make Eskilstuna municipality the ideal place to work.
• During the mandate period, take a significant step towards
fulfilling the goal of fulltime employment as a right and part-time
as a possibility within the municipal sector.
• Increase the number of job-matches for disabled people in the
community.
• Continue to collaborate with local trade and industry to create
apprenticeships and trainee posts.
• Support and actively encourage entrepreneurship among
immigrant women and men.
• Work strategically to reduce gender segregation within the
municipal sector by putting more emphasis on the population
composition during recruitment.
• Take the initiative to offer upper secondary youth summer jobs
with collective wage agreements and working conditions.
• Continue with the development of social businesses and
cooperatives.
• Strive towards creating a good corporate climate by enabling
new business establishments through a close dialogue with the
private sector.
• Improve awareness of environmental technology, cleantech,
within municipal activities.
• Ensure that the municipality has a plan and land earmarked for
the establishing of new companies.

6. A living music and cultural town
• Provide more spontaneous sporting venues.
• Open more youth recreation centres during the mandate period
and continue to develop existing centres.
• Set up a disabled-friendly jogging track in Kronskogen.
• During the mandate period, build a new multipurpose arena in
the heart of the municipality.
• Build a new public baths during the mandate period.
• Establish a more modern and fair grant system for the sport,
culture and recreational sector.
• Continue to develop Balsta Musikslott as a cultural venue and a
spearhead for Eskilstuna as a music town.
• Improve access to loan instruments and begin to phase out the
Music School fee during the mandate period.
• Retain and defend free bus travel for the municipality’s pupils to
facilitate active recreation for all children and youth.
A good life for all
• Support drug- and crime prevention work.
• Work with outreach activities to prevent young people getting
into trouble.
• Increase and develop the offering of open activities for people
with abuse-related or mental problems.
• Set up a youth dependency centre.
• Counteract homelessness through a new municipal housing
scheme.
• Continued support to hostels to reduce the suffering of people
without a home.
• Improve collaboration with landlords in the municipality to
persuade more to take a greater social responsibility.
• Continue with the offensive to help people on economic support
to provide for themselves.
• Continue to improve the interaction with the county council and
other parts of the municipality to gather resources around
vulnerable individuals to avoid people falling between two stools.
• Develop the family centres in Eskilstuna together with others,
such as the county council, parishes and communities.

7. A secure and active old age
• Continue the expansion of homelike housing and facilitate couple
accommodation.
• Enable elderly people to stay in their homes with the help of
technology.
• Focus on integrating an HBT perspective into elderly policy.
• Retain free bus travel for the elderly with the aim of
encompassing more elderly people.
• Give users of elderly care more say and influence.
• Increase the offering of activities for the elderly.
• Introduce a local elderly inspector.
• Improve the possibility of choosing food and eating together
with others.
• Strive to ensure that all food that is served or driven home is
nutritional and wholesome.
• Give the elderly with home help the chance to decide how their
home help hours are used.
• Improve the professional development of elderly care staff.
Modern and bold town planning
• Continue to urbanise while ensuring access to green areas.
• Strive to increase housing construction while improving
integration through mixing the forms of tenure in new as well as
existing estates.
• In consultation with the tenants, strive to improve the housing
environment in neglected estates in Eskilstuna.
• Improve accessibility in public places, both civic and commercial
premises.
• Make the planning process more transparent and democratic, for
example, a forum between politicians and citizens.
• Encourage alternative rural water and wastewater solutions.
• Take consideration to people’s security during all planning, with
special emphasis on children and women.
• In interaction with commerce and property owners, proceed to
develop Eskilstuna’s centre into a pulsating and attractive area.
• Implement a project to create vehicle-free paths and cycle lanes
into the town centre.

8. Socialdemokraterna i Eskilstuna
Valcentrum: Kungsgatan 14, 1 tr
Valhemsida: www.val2010.nu
Ordinarie hemsida: www.socialdemokraterna.se/eskilstuna
Telefon expedition: 016-200 62 91
The national organization in other languages:
www.socialdemokraterna.se/Internationellt/Other-languages/