The Dutch digital fraud detection system SyRI was announced to set up to detect social security fraud quickly and effectively and by doing so, maintain support for the social security system. It was the formal position that for the sake of effectiveness, no information about the algorithm and very limited information about the application of the system should be shared. The authors argue on the basis of a policy analysis, a legal exploration and a literature study that the lack of transparency about the chosen method and the application of the digital fraud detection system in social security can have far-reaching consequences for both the individual and society . The information sharing and the use of algorithms can lead to suspicion of and declining confidence in the government, and a reduced motivation to comply with the prevailing rules. This could undermine the original purpose.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Combatting the coronavirus politicians and policy makers have to continuously make a trade-off between public health and democratic rights. How do citizens’ attitudes towards democracy develop in a pandemic? In this study we test whether changes in the information environment affect citizens’ trust in the local and national government. Moreover, we study whether changes in the information environment are associated with the perceptions about the extent to which democratic processes are under pressure. We address these questions using a five wave panel study in the Netherlands conducted between April and September 2020. We find that during this period media use and political trust decreased. Moreover, Dutch citizens are worried about the effects of the corona crisis on local and national democracy. When it comes to the effects of media use on political trust and attitudes towards democracy, we find that media use has a limited effect on attitudes towards democracy. If anything, consuming news via the public broadcaster has a positive effect on political trust. To conclude, our study provides descriptive evidence about the development of attitudes towards democracy in the Netherlands during a major public health crisis. Dutch citizens are worried about democracy but media play a limited role in amplifying or reducing these worries.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

The most relevant part of a discussion is not what is discussed but what cannot be spoken of. The real taboos are those for which it is taboo to call them taboos. The status quo defines itself as non-ideological while denouncing any challenge to itself as radical.
Therefore the column ‘De Blinde Vlek’ frames the framers, politicizes the status quo and articulates what is not heard of.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Municipalities play an important role in the Dutch energy transition. Therefore, they are expected to deal both sufficiently and timely with their tasks. The question is whether they have the capacity to do so (governing capacity). This study aims to assess whether improving governing capacity can be used to improve the policy performance. We operationalized governing capacity and built a model to assess the relation between several conditions for governing capacity and policy performance for three domains of the energy transition: built environment, mobility and renewables. We found no direct relationship between perceived governing capacity and energy transition policy output. However, we found relationships between conditions for governing capacity, and the policy output. About 25 percent of the total variance in policy performance could be attributed to population size. This percentage levels up to 55 to 60 percent if the motivation of the local administration, cooperation between municipalities and other governmental organisations and the participation of citizens and businesses are also taken into account. This contradicts the idea that enlarging municipalities is the most important way to achieve a higher policy performance.

In the past decade, large infrastructure projects in the Netherlands have often been implemented through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), specifically using Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) contracts. While the decision to implement projects through PPPs is based on expected advantages for internal parties – the public and private partners in the PPP –, there is a call for more focus on the advantages and disadvantages of PPPs for external stakeholders. External stakeholder management in DBFM projects is based on a contractual division of risks and responsibilities between the partners. However, it is clear from the literature that the contract does not guarantee successful stakeholder management. Relational aspects are important. Little research has been done, however, into the interplay of contractual and relational aspects in achieving successful stakeholder management. This article addresses this research need. A comparative case study was conducted into the PPP projects A9 Gaasperdammerweg and A16 Rotterdam. The study first shows that sanctions, when combined with a relational approach, have a positive effect on the relationships with stakeholders. Second, external stakeholder management cannot be simply outsourced to the private partner and continuous involvement of the public partner is important for success.

Some prestigious urban projects demonstrate many forms of misfit, misfortune, or mismanagement. Without big plans and high ambitions large projects don’t get off the ground, however, with a lack of attention for a diligent implementation and organization, fiascoes will follow. In the city of Rotterdam, the realization of a pop music hall, failed completely. In this case, the municipal public real estate agency played a central role in the failure of this urban project, and even a huge fraud that wasted millions of euros came out in the open. The main question in this article is: what can we learn from projects that fail during the implementation phase, and how can we professionalize public real estate agencies to avoid mistakes, fraud and other fiascoes? Such questions are relevant for public agencies that have to deal with both high and ever changing political and managerial ambitions, as well as with several commercial actors. This article offers insights behind the scenes of a public real estate agency, based on an in-depth case study. The authors demonstrate mechanisms of organizational vulnerability during the implementation of urban projects, as well as critical success factors of a professional, mature public real estate agency.

Incidents in the semi-public sector regularly reveal the underlying problems of managerial mania and decline. Since the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Housing Associations and the new Housing Act, there have been fewer incidents involving managerial hubris and risky projects. However, in the event of incidents, the share of administrative decline of often long-serving directors of small corporations in particular is still considerable. The question in this article is what forms of managerial mania and decline occur among corporation directors and what internal and external supervisors can do to identify and mitigate this in a timely manner. To answer that question, this article examines the theory and practice of managerial mania and decline. Case analysis shows which manifestations of managerial mania and decline there were in the housing association sector. Internal and external supervisors can counter managerial mania and decline by exchanging knowledge with each other about the weak signals of decline and effective forms of countervailing power.

To get a better understanding of the maniac mechanism that can take place behind the scenes of prestigious projects, we need to further explore practices within the world of commercial real estate that are usually hidden from the public, including public administration. This article presents a conversation with a Dutch research journalist that became famous after his bestseller books about real estate fraud, and his hundreds of national newspaper articles about all kinds of integrity issues. This article delivers insights in the maniac character of commercial real estate within a vulnerable public context. The article demonstrates cases of fraudulent private entrepreneurs and public officials, examples of blind spots in the public management of urban projects that are developed in partnership with commercial real estate firms, and also cases of public failure in preventing integrity issues.

Manic mechanisms in all stages of the development of large, prestigious urban projects can be curbed by internal and external contradiction and control. Someone who has studied this for years is Paul Hofstra, director of the Rotterdam Court of Audit and surrounding municipalities. At the end of his term, he uses research reports to look back with us on the role played by the municipalities in major urban projects over the past twelve years. Recently, the Court of Audit published “Public value in trouble” a meta-analysis of ten years of audit of the Rotterdam municipal administration. In retrospect on the past years, four themes always came back: problems in policy design, implementation problems, internal cooperation and management and cooperation with other parties.

The cabinet has decided to set up a national inspectorate with the task of supervising the quality and the rule of law of the public services provided by the tax authorities. The reason for this is the persistent problems surrounding the Tax and Customs Administration for years (organization, management, IT, personnel) and more recently the crisis surrounding the supplementary child benefit. The Netherlands is not the first and will soon not be the only country with a special regulator for the tax authorities and which focuses on legal protection of taxpayers and the quality of the service. In this article, we ask ourselves how the institution of the new Dutch inspectorate relates to the situation in various foreign countries and we examine which dilemmas and policy questions these raise. We note that with this new inspection the Netherlands is in tune with the situation in various foreign countries. Regarding the relationship and cooperative relationship with the National Ombudsman, the guarantee of the independent and impartial exercise of inspection supervision and the increasing importance of a Charter of the rights of taxpayers, a few important policy questions remain in a comparative sense.