Policymaking freedom and specific-purpose grants

• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Response by ministers

We investigated the specific-purpose grants: state monies intended for policy objectives to be realised at local or regional level. Municipalities and provinces are given increasingly greater freedom to develop their own policy with these grants, the idea being that this enables them to respond more optimally to specific local problems, to take more effective action and to better align policy with other local policy.

Conclusions

The government's expectations are largely disappointed. It appears difficult for provinces and municipalities to align local policy to the target groups and other policy sectors. What was intended to be customised became primarily 'off the peg' policy.

The disappointing results are owing to the fact that the government takes insufficient account of the limited capacity of decentral authorities. The government, moreover, has the tendency to interfere with the substance of local policy. What's more, 'The Hague' piles policy on top of policy. The capacity needed by local authorities to develop customised policy is therefore used for policy changes. But the decentral authorities are themselves also responsible for the situation: they lack the daring to set their own priorities.

A positive development is that the Government is going to simplify the accountability and control of specific-purpose grants. This does entail the risk that the government will not be able to obtain reasonable assurance on the legitimacy of specific-purpose grants. We have developed proposals to prevent this.

Recommendations

We have advised the government in relevant cases to systematically consider whether a specific-purpose grant with policy-making freedom is the most appropriate instrument. Moreover, the government should not expand the policy-making freedom of decentral governments without tackling the issue of capacity. We also recommend that policy changes be avoided as much as possible.

We have advised that the decentral authorities hold fast to their own priorities and make use of the policy-making freedom offered by the specific-purpose grants.

Response by ministers

The government's response to most of the conclusions and recommendations was positive, but differs from our view on the way in which the specific purpose-grants are used and should be controlled. We will therefore continue to discuss this item.