*3.3. Unclear Policy and Assignments*

The conceptual ambiguities are closely related to unclear policy and assignments as reported by several respondents. A partial or complete lack of political governance documents and policy, including cultural heritage management programs, is one reason. Another reason put forward is that the politicians do not always use their own governing documents. One respondent expresses the unclear policy and assignments in the following way:

"After all, there is a political program, where you put forward nice wishes about how things should be. The ideas are put into an action plan where you make priorities, but historic and cultural values are rarely highlighted, so we lose it on the way. You continue to work and continue to feel that you have no control. I would like to have an action plan with headings, such as cultural heritage, that include the activities we have on this topic. What is the focus of our attention? How can we work successfully? At present, some idea pops up and, yes, we implement it but our work on cultural heritage becomes event driven."

Several respondents argue that the only way to increase the status of historic and cultural landscape dimensions in environmental planning is to promote political decisions that make cultural heritage programs and other policy documents an integral part of the municipal comprehensive plans. A majority of the respondents answered that they used the National environmental quality objectives, Planning and Building Act, local cultural heritage programs and the Historic Environment Act for guidance in their work. A few respondents argued that the ideas of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) inspired them in their work although less than a third used it as a guiding document on a daily basis.
