News item | 09-01-2026 | 2:05 PM
In the government’s response to the advice of the Council for Public Administration (ROB) “Dealing with imbalance” (March 2025) and “Making progress with co-governance” (July 2025), Minister Rijkaart of the Interior and Kingdom Relations announces a further exploration into improving the monitoring of (existing) co-governance tasks. The minister has sent the government’s response to the House of Representatives.
Minister Rijkaart: ‘Municipalities and provinces perform many tasks for the government. These local authorities are close to the people and know exactly what is needed. Yet the system is faltering: they indicate that there is sometimes not a good balance between tasks, resources and execution power to do the job well. That is why we want to gain a better insight into what the government and other authorities need from each other. We will discuss this further.’
The ROB states in its reports that an imbalance has arisen between (co-governance) tasks, powers and resources of municipalities and provinces and that this leads to friction. This imbalance means that both ministers and other authorities are unable to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the tasks that the legislature has assigned to municipalities, according to the ROB. The ROB recommends that the legislator provide a clear and complete overview of the co-management tasks of the municipalities, and use this overview to structurally ensure that there is a balance between the ambitions and the financing, powers and risks of these tasks.
In the letter to Parliament, the cabinet states that it considers it important that fellow authorities can function properly. She finds it undesirable that more detailed management leads to less and less decentralized policy freedom. The government therefore wants to explore in the coming months with the umbrella organizations of municipalities and provinces how better monitoring of co-governance tasks can contribute to the discussion about the balance between ambitions, tasks, resources and implementation power. For example, by using existing research in specific policy areas and the new benefit form Special Fund Benefit (BFU).