Samenvatting

Arm’s length bodies are often used by Dutch municipalities for the implementation of local tasks. An arm’s length body is ‘a private-law or public-law organization in which the Dutch province or municipality has an administrative and a financial interest’. The use of arm’s length bodies is an international trend, but foreign knowledge is little used in the Dutch debate about arm’s length bodies. This essay provides an overview of what is known about these bodies from international public administration and places the Dutch situation in an international context. The authors then discuss some concerns about steering (control) that exist internationally and in the Netherlands about arm’s length bodies. They describe three concerns: concerns about information deficiencies, democratic deficiencies, and governance deficiencies.