Lessons Learned: Ex-Ante Control of Externally Autonomised Entities in the Netherlands at the National Level

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In many countries, NPM theories have led to changes in the organisational setting in which government services are produced and delivered to society. The traditional departmental setting is not the standard anymore, but is complemented by several forms of institutional arrangements at arm's length of government (e.g. Talbot 2004), commonly referred to as 'quangos' (e.g. Barker 1982). Autonomisation and quangocratisation (Van Thiel 2000) are two concepts very close to each other. Quangocratisation and autonomisation have a relationship to privatisation (Boorsma and Mol 1983, Von Weizsacker, Young, and Finger 2005), but essentially under autonomisation government still holds a form of interest--politically or financially--in the newly formed organisation. Autonomisation is a process in which managerial responsibility is transferred from bureaucratic hierarchy to managers that can be held accountable for the responsibilities attributed. In this context, the OECD refers to manager's autonomy as '... the ability to make decisions ... without constant involvement or need for approval by the line minister' (OECD 2002: 13). Autonomisation differs from privatisation as privatisation has two clear cut forms: either creating a private law entity from a former government unit or privatisation is the result of a process in which government withdraws all responsibility for planning, funding and production and leaves it to the market. Autonomisation has two forms as well: external autonomisation by creating a new legal entity and internal autonomisation which merely creates more degrees of freedom for management within an existing legal entity (see e.g. Van Thiel 2000: 8; Kummeling and Duijkersloot 2003: 80). Studies on quangos often focus on creation and implementation (e.g. Pollitt and Talbot 2004) or on management tools (e.g. Laegreid, Ronness and Rubecksen 2007) and institutional arrangements (e.g. OECD 2002). Studies on the relation to the budget authorisation and appropriation dimension do not exist. The Netherlands Court of Audit [NCA] noted in its most recent report on a particular form of Dutch externally autonomised organisations, that information provision on accountability of operations towards Parliament of these organisations needs more attention (Parliament 2006a: 9). Accountability can only be realised when it is possible to compare to a certain standard. The budget authorisation process sets these standards. So, before accountability can be realised, it is worthwhile to study the authorised arrangements set by politicians in relation to externally autonomised entities. In this paper I will address the following research question: What are the ex ante control tools available to Parliament to find a match between the level of autonomisation and political control with respect to external autonomisation of provision of services in the public domain? The paper starts with a brief summary on theory with respect to autonomisation (section II). Section III provides a description of institutional arrangements that are used in the Dutch setting for providing government services. Legislation and other instruments can be used to set a framework under which the services can be provided by autonomised entities. These instruments will be discussed in section IV. In section V, I will address empirical findings on actual control used by government in their relation to the autonomised entities. Finally, section VI provides some conclusions. JOHAN A.M. DE KRUIJF (1) School of Management and Governance, University of Twente, Netherlands. 1 The author thanks N. Barkel for his contribution on the section on RWTs as well as those who commented on a previous version of this text. AUTONOMISATION AS PART OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM Traditional government consists of a (federal) State, an intermediate government level (provinces in the Netherlands) and a number of local government entities. …

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