A Review of the Policy and Management Instruments Project for Municipalities in the Netherlands

Abstract

A nationwide project has made many Dutch municipalities familiar with the application of various business‐like concepts, such as output budgeting and responsibility accounting. After a description of the contents and implementation process of this project, the paper presents a critical review of its underlying principles. The presumed division of roles between politicians and managers is criticized. Moreover, it will be argued that the output‐oriented planning and control framework should be replaced by a plural approach which takes into account differences in municipal activities and in their scale. The paper ends with a comparison between the Dutch project and current international trends in managerialism in the public sector.

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