Strong communities: Monitoring and accounting for policy

• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Response of the Minister

The 'strong communities policy' implemented by the Minister of Housing, Communities and Integration (WWI) is designed to tackle problems and improve the position of residents in 40 urban neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. We have analysed how the policy was formulated and looked at how it is being implemented in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven and Arnhem. Our investigation centred on whether the government had ensured that the Minister could effectively account ex postfor policy results. This cannot be done unless the impact of the activities in the communities is monitored.

Conclusions

Formulation of policy. Formulation of the strong communities policy was not without difficulties. Not only was there criticism in the early stages of the selection of the 40 communities but there was also uncertainty for many months about how the policy would be financed. The municipalities had initially thought that their community action plans would be funded directly by central government. They eventually learned that they would have to negotiate with housing associations about what parts of their plans the latter could pay for. The problem with this, however, was that the housing associations had no statutory responsibility for many activities in the community action plans (particularly those directed at social problems). The Minister of WWI's broad interpretation of the associations' statutory tasks has alleviated only some of these problems. Cooperation between the associations and the municipalities in the cities we investigated, however, ultimately became stronger and the two parties proved willing to work together to improve the communities.

Monitoring policy in the communities. The Minister of WWI has several good instruments to check policy progress in the communities and identify undesirable side effects. They are: (1) an outcome monitor to measure the achievement of policy goals, (2) a long-term study of community residents to map out the consequences of people moving into and out of the communities, (3) a 'quality of living barometer' to reveal whether problems are being relocated to other communities, (4) an output monitor to collate local policy reports so that the Minister can track policy progress, and (5) a qualitative study of the 'unexpected benefits' of the activities in the communities to learn from the policy conducted.

Accountability for policy results. The Minister will use the outcome monitor to report every other year on the results in the priority communities. In our opinion, there are still shortcomings in the measurement of the achievement of goals. The Minister has not clearly defined, for example, what social changes she wishes to achieve in the 40 communities, or precisely when. The monitoring data are therefore inadequate to explain clearly to the House of Representatives and the public whether the goals for the strong communities are actually being achieved. Furthermore, the indicators that are scored do not adequately cover the relevant policy fields in the strong communities policy.

Recommendations

By enlarging the outcome monitor to include indicators that are currently lacking and by defining the desired social changes more clearly in advance, the Minister of WWI could increase the monitor's utility. We also think that even better lessons can be learned if the developments in all communities in the Netherlands are analysed and if the unexpected negative effects of policy are studied in the 40 priority communities. The Minister should also appoint an independent committee to review the findings of local policy evaluations. This would improve accountability for policy on strong communities. Policy makers in all priority communities should be informed of the results so that more lessons can be learned.

The levy imposed on the housing associations for the strong communities policy should be used only for those associations in communities that really need additional funding.

Response of the Minister

The Minister of WWI recognises many of our criticisms and will take the recommendations to heart. The Minister does not entirely agree with some of our points. She undertook to enlarge and update the outcome monitor in the autumn of 2008.