Samenvatting

In 2015, the Dutch government decentralised a significant part of its responsibilities in the ‘social domain’ to local governments. Faced with these new social tasks, many municipalities opted to outsource them. Not all municipalities are satisfied with the quality of public services, and some are choosing to take on some of the tasks themselves again. However, municipalities face staff shortages and increasingly choose to hire external staff when outsourcing tasks. Whichever strategy municipalities choose, the provision of public services in the social domain demands a great deal of expertise in the field of good commissioning practices. In this article, we speak to 56 principals and contractors about the conditions and pitfalls of procurement. There is a trend towards municipalities putting more limits on outsourcing and instead taking tasks in the areas of participation, integration and debt relief into their own hands. There seems to be a preference for more public ownership and more relational forms of procurement focused on long-term goals. This also requires new knowledge building. The local government should be the ‘treasurer’ of the quality of public administration directing the quality of public services.