En route from supply to demand in care and education

• Conclusion
• Recommendations

We have audited the policy on the transition from management by supply to management by demand in the care and education sectors. Management by demand gives greater priority to the needs of service users. This form of management is still in its infancy, which is why our audit was exploratory in nature. We investigated how the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) have incorporated management by demand into their policies or how they have organised systems so that suppliers take more account of the users' wishes.

Conclusion

We found that both Ministries thought similar conditions were important to facilitate management by demand: strengthen the position of the user, allow the institutions some discretion (and introduce market incentives in the care sector), and make the supply of care services transparent. The policy in both sectors is to encourage management by demand through a mix of instruments: in the care sector, economic and participative measures are being used and in the education sector chiefly participative measures.

The Ministers could ask more questions, however, about the coherence of the various instruments. For example, do they form the right mix, do they reinforce or weaken each other, what practical impact do they have on public services for the public and the professionals?

Recommendations

Both Ministries have adopted a 'learning strategy'. We think this learning strategy could be strengthened and have therefore formulated a number of learning points: make better use of the policy cycle, learn from each other's experiences, increase the internal coherence of the policy and clarify its coherence with other policies.