Samenvatting

The regulatory agencies in various public service sectors are said to be changing (some) of their regulatory attention issues of internal governance of organizations in education, health care en social housing. This paper aims to assess how (if, at all) responsible actors within those organizations experience this shift in regulatory focus. We report on the findings from a survey with modest N, distributed at an early stage of this new policy. The paper shows that respondents have fairly divergent views on whether or not this regulatory shift has indeed occurred, something which is not uncommon for a new policy. We distinguish three mechanisms through which governance-based oversight may have an impact on public service providers. This new regulatory regime could 1) have an agenda-setting effect within organizations, could 2) stimulate organizational decision-makers to take well-considered decisions and could 3) induce a sense of relational felt accountability towards the regulator.