Performance of the Dutch Coastguard; Impact Assessment 2010

Our main recommendation in 2005 had been that the Coastguard was a complex of services lacking in coherency. The various services were supposed to work together but in practice the interests of individual parties prevailed. We published our first Impact Assessment on this audit in 2007. The course had already been set by then to strengthen the organisation of the Coastguard. The draft Action Plan and Budget (APB) 2007 clearly described the measures that would be taken and linked them to resources and performance. This was in keeping with our recommendations. Since the Coastguard was not working in accordance with the new structure at the time of our 2007 Impact Assessment we decided to carry out a second Impact Assessment.

This second Impact Assessment is based on an evaluation made by an external firm on behalf of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (V&W). The firm investigated the extent to which the Coastguard complied at the end of 2009 with the Decree on the Establishment of the Coastguard and whether the Decree was embedded in the Coastguard's main processes. It also considered what steps the Coastguard had taken in response to the findings and conclusions presented in our 2005 and 2007 reports.

The firm concluded that the Coastguard had gone to great lengths in recent years to reorganise itself and follow up the Court of Audit's recommendations. Our recommendations from 2005 and our conclusions from 2007 had been taken to heart. The main problems that had prompted our recommendations in 2005 had been resolved in design and largely also in practice.

With the implementation of the APB, the Coastguard's actions are now based, not only in design but also in practice, on policy rather than on the obligation to use this instrument.

The process to record policy performance has been optimised. The ministries concerned draw up an Enforcement and Service Plan each year, setting out the policy and policy performance for the coming year. A significant improvement has been made in the way in which the Coastguard receives, applies and accounts for the resources it needs. To this end, a series of interim measurements and evaluations have been made in recent years.

The Minister of Defence wrote that he was pleased with our finding that the Coastguard had gone to great lengths in recent years and had made progress reorganising itself.

The State Secretary for V&W welcomed our finding that the Coastguard had taken to heart the recommendations and conclusions we had made in our audit of the performance of the Coastguard in 2005 and 2007 respectively and had resolved the main problems that had prompted our recommendations in 2005 not only in design but also largely in practice as well.