Netherlands

Review of Public Administration

Study Visits

Study visit to the Netherlands

Background

Status: Constitutional monarchy
Population: 16 million (2001)
Area: 41,526 km2
Administrative divisions: 12 provinces (mainly determined by historical factors), further sub-divided into 489 municipalities, some of which are extremely small in terms of population (some approximately 1,000)
Legal system: Civil law system incorporating French penal theory. Constitution does not permit judicial review of acts of States General.
GDP: 444 billion euro (2002)
Unemployment: 4%
Public sector employment: Approximately 10% of all jobs are provided by the public sector.

Role of tiers of government

Central government has the usual roles that one would expect in a modern democracy – setting policy, strategy, budgets, international relations, etc.
Provincial government in the Netherlands has a very limited role, mostly concerned with spatial planning. However in the context of the Netherlands and the importance of land (or the lack of it) this role is actually quite important.
The municipal government has a very strong role in developing and delivering services including education, social policy, urban planning and housing, registration of births, marriages and deaths, public works and utilities and to some extent health.
There is a very strong consensus culture in the Netherlands, as evidenced by the prevalence of coalition governments. Coalitions also prevail in local government. The tendency is to hammer out an agreement that suits all rather than stick to entrenched positions.

Improving services

There is no formal system of performance targets as such, in terms that we would understand such as Best Value. Financial control by central and provincial government is the main mechanism for control and monitoring of performance. In terms of the municipalities, improvement of services comes about by the municipality being very close to the electorate and the involvement and consultation of local people.
E-government is a very high priority. It’s being coordinated and driven by the centre but being enthusiastically embraced by local government. The municipality of Alphen aan den Rijn has a very impressive town hall that operates as a one-stop shop for all public services.
Given that there are so many of them, there is a high degree of cooperation between municipalities based on either agency level or service level agreements. The local government association (the Association of Netherlands Municipalities) does much of this coordination.
Municipalities take great advantage of their ability to utilise private finance for public works. For example the municipality of Alphen aan den Rijn obtained over 250m euro from private finance to create the new city hall and civic centre mentioned above.

Enhancing democracy

There is a very strong consensus culture in the Netherlands, and while this promotes inclusiveness at all levels, it does have the downside in that it hampers change and progress. A great deal of time and energy is taken up with striving for agreement. Rather than taking large steps, incremental change is the preferred approach. One manifestation of this is local government where a need for rationalisation in the number of councils (489) can’t be taken forward because of the objections of smaller councils.
The local government association has a strong influence on central government and ensures that the views of municipalities are heard and acted on.

Involving communities

The consensus culture means that there is a very strong commitment to involving communities. Examples include local referenda on a variety of issues, the inclusion of the private and voluntary sectors not only in policy planning and development but in services provision also, and in the adoption and promotion of very transparent administrative systems where citizens can see clearly what their elected representatives do and how they do it.

Better governance

There has been a move from monism to dualism over the last number of years, meaning that there are now full-time salaried mayors drawn from the council but they must resign when they are appointed to the Board. This produces a cabinet style arrangement whereby the council scrutinises the Board and approves all policy decisions.
One aspect of local government that is being overhauled is the arrangement whereby the monarch appoints mayors from a locally nominated list. This arrangement is under scrutiny because of the undemocratic nature of the process.
The larger cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, etc) operate almost as a separate part of the local government system, able to exert pressure on central government and being accorded special treatment because of their size and distinctive problems. Central government has given these arrangements formal recognition. There is a feeling that this is producing a fourth tier of government and therefore more bureaucracy.
One of the most interesting aspects of local government is the existence of a municipal bank, which is managed by a board appointed by central and local government, and its role is to provide competitive financing for local government initiatives in the form of the municipal fund. This provides strong stability in local government funding, because if the overall government budget increases or decreases, the municipal fund increases or decreases by the same percentage.

Main issues emerging

The main issues that emerged from this study visit that are of most interest in the context of the Review are:
  • the regional and sub-regional plans developed by local authorities which not only secures and stabilises coordination between local authorities but also helps to deliver large infrastructure projects which would be beyond the ability of single authorities.
  • the Municipal Bank/Fund, which provides stability and security of local government funding.
  • the strong push towards e-government and the development of one-stop shops.
  • the abolition of dual mandate and the development of full-time elected deputy mayors with specific portfolios.
The importance of the consensus culture in promoting inclusiveness.