New public management and management changes in Dutch local government: some recent experiences and future topics

Since about 1985, Dutch municipalities and provinces, i.e. local government, initiated many reforms and change projects in the field of their management control, which are lumped together here as ?management changes?. Was the introduction of these changes mainly based on functionalist, ?rational? considerations, that is, a wish to improve economic performance, as New Public Management suggests? Or did economically seen irrational considerations perhaps also play a part, for example, a wish to follow new management trends and to look ?modern?? Based on documents and interviews with 23 politicians and professional managers in twelve Dutch municipalities and two provinces, this explorative paper examines experiences with various management changes implemented by local government as part of New Public Management (NPM), and with subsequent related changes. In addition, it discusses ?change initiating factors? that may have contributed to the high amount of major change initiatives that were started in a rather short space of time. Some of these factors are, for example, budgets cuts, trends and more demanding citizens/voters. One important change initiating factor that was mentioned is uncertainty amongst politicians, which is a consequence of the increased political volatility amongst voters. This factor suggests that, now and in the near future, for politicians and professional managers it could be ?politically rational? to try to increase the (economic) performances of their organization. Several authors have questioned or criticized the effects of NPM?s and government?s focus on economic efficiency and effectiveness. However, taking the change initiating factors into consideration, the paper speculates that in the future, too, it could be a rational survival strategy for politicians and managers to focus on initiatves that are intended to enhance performance and efficiency

Politicians, output-budgets and performance evaluation : case research in three Dutch municipalities

Since the mid-eighties many Dutch municipalities have divided their organizations into decentralized units. In addition, most municipalities have introduced management instruments derived from the private sector, and have been paying more attention to the outputs of the organizations. Nowadays, the political administration of a municipality says that it wants to hold organization units accountable for realized output performance. This paper raises the question of whether politicians use the available quantitative output information to control their organization and in particular to evaluate the performance of top officials. In the paper the Hopwood evaluation-styles, which originally refer to the private sector, are further developed for the public sector. Exploratory field research concerning the use of output data and the evaluation styles used has been conducted in three Dutch municipalities. The aldermen in these municipalities paid much attention to manager’s activities and the organization’s operations and relatively little to outputs. Based on these empirical findings the paper introduces an additional evaluation style, the ’operations-conscious’ style. In this style of evaluation, quantitative outputs play some part, but the main question is whether a manager acts as a good ’facilitator’, i.e. ensures that his organization is functioning well. This aspect is mainly judged in a qualitative way. Besides, important criteria are the way in which a manager deals with short-term problems and with the politician’s opinions and personal wishes.

A reappraisal of accounting changes in Dutch local government

Abstract Municipalities and provinces in the Netherlands, denoted here as local government, have introduced many major accounting changes and changes in other management control aspects since 1985. However, various change initiatives and new instruments were dropped after a short while, were superseded by new reforms, or only used to a limited extent. Interviews with 23 politicians and professional managers in local government made clear that they often were critical about the reasons for and the effects of the changes. For example, fads, a desire to ?look modern? and mimicry sometimes played a part in the introduction of the changes. Previous academic research suggests that in several cases the high ambitions of New Public Management have not been realized. However, this explorative paper does not primarily discuss the gap between expected and realized management changes. Instead, it focuses on the actual effects resulting from the accounting changes in the perception of the persons interviewed. The institutionalist approach that is used in this paper focuses on changes in rules, routines and institutions. The institutionalist approach of the accounting changes in Dutch local government suggests that, seen over the longer run, gradually some effects may have been realized that have considerably changed their culture and increased their citizen and result-orientedness. Further, the explorative paper indicates that an institutionalist perspective draws attention to factors and developments that might not be noticed when a more functional and short-term perspective is chosen