No longer one Minister of Housing, but a team of housing crisis, says the advisory board

Not one minister who is responsible for a policy area, but a team of ministers, to promote cooperation between departments. That is one of the major recommendations from the report Expert of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) that will be presented on Tuesday.

The most important policy themes, as well as the teams of ministers, could be determined during the formation. For example, civil servants do not only work for the Minister of Housing, but for the ‘Housing Crisis’ team. As a result, ministries are ‘held to each other’, writes the WRR, an independent advisory body for the government and parliament. “It should be clear: together out, together at home, that’s how it really has to work.”

“The realization that ministries are loose islands has descended within the central government”

How the government functions has been under discussion for years – after, among other things, the allowance affair and the Groningen gas file. Recurring criticism, for example from NSC, is also that the civil service would have too little professional knowledge. Previous attempts to better organize the government have hardly had any effect, writes the WRR. “A more rigorous approach” is required, says councilor Paul ‘t Hart of the WRR.

The idea does not seem completely new. Attempts have already been made to stimulate cooperation between ministries. At the beginning of this year, under the leadership of outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof, a nitrogen committee was set up, with nine ministers and two state secretaries. For the time being, this committee has only presented a ‘starter package’ with solutions.

Is the Nitrogen Committee a good example of that cooperation between ministries?

“I see it as a typical aid construction that causes few major changes: the intention is to work together, but in the end it works as well and as badly as the attitude of the ministers. The outgoing minister of Agriculture, Femke Wiersma (BBB, remains responsible for the approach. So other ministries can always take a step back and other ministeries can also be a step back and also a step back. So you don’t get rid of it in the long term. “

Zoom in

A ‘team-x’ from ministers is and is also in the willingness to work together?

“That’s right, but after forty years of public administration, I am behind it: the two most powerful control instruments are money and political accountability. The WRR proposes that ministers will jointly be responsible for resolving major tasks such as the energy transition and for this also account for themselves in the House of Representatives. The ministers are made in this way the collaboration in the individual. to strengthen ministers and ministries, they are currently lacking. “

The WRR report refers to another far-reaching advice from the then advisory committee Wiegel (to VVD leader Hans Wiegel). The government then, perhaps even more than now, was struggling with ‘compelling’, as a result of which officials saw other ministries as competitors. The Wiegel committee suggested that it went back to eight smaller core departments, which could then compile units that would then work on specific policy areas, the so-called ‘block box model’.

For the ‘block box model’ it was lacking in political support. That can now happen again. But you state that this proposal would be less radical. Why?

“The realization that ministries operate as separate islands, which has descended over the years at the central government. As a result, the space has now emerged to look closely at the question: have we organized ourselves well? At the same time, politics and top official for large reorganisations, that is also understandable. The path that we are in the proposal.”

“You don’t want the National Service to stay the toy with every cabinet formation”

Another proposal is a ‘commissioner for the National Service’. What powers would it get?

“We looked at the Delta Commissioner, which was established by the Balkenende IV cabinet in 2009 to coordinate the high water policy in the Netherlands. Such a government commissioner does not carry out assignments of the minister directly, but acts as a director who brings parties together. The Delta Commissioner also received a budget of bonus, but he can set her her sort of her sort of her sort of her sort of her sort of her sort of her sort of her, but her sort of her sort of her, her sort of her, her sort of her, her sort of her, her her sort of his her own her own her own his her own his own his his own his own billion of his his bonating oil. Appointment period must be longer than a cabinet, so you need some distance to politics.

What should that relationship between the government commissioner, civil service and politics look like?

“We did not think of that up to three digits behind the comma. I think that in that relationship the primacy of politics has been blended. And that, given the enormous instability in politics, it is urgently desirable that the official service is given a more position.”

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