News item | 08-03-2022 | 23:30
Aggression, intimidation and subversive influences in governments, it is frequently in the news and unfortunately is also increasingly common. To tackle this, the government will invest an extra 100 million euros in making public administration more resilient over the next 10 years. Efforts are being made to strengthen municipalities against the influence of undermining and to raise awareness and safety of decentralized political office holders such as mayors, aldermen, members of parliament and councilors. In addition, the City Deal View on Subversion will be expanded and continued, giving local authorities a better insight into the breeding grounds of subversive crime in neighborhoods and neighborhoods.† That is what Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Hanke Bruins Slot informs the House of Representatives.
Minister Bruins Slot: ‘A subservient government enables people to make an active contribution to society and to help the vulnerable. Some people do this by committing themselves to public administration, either full-time or in addition to their regular work. They make every effort to ensure good care for the elderly, pleasant schools for our children or the quality of life in our residential areas. For good and reliable governance it is an absolute necessity that administrators, civil servants and politicians can do their work without aggression, intimidation or other undermining influences. We should never consider this normal. Administrators, civil servants and politicians are not alone in this.’
Protection and safety of political office holders
More than 65% of the mayors indicate that they have experienced verbal aggression or threats and intimidation. This applies to almost 40% of the aldermen and 30% of the councillors. They often do not report or report this. To reverse this trend, a line has been drawn together with the Ministry of Justice and Security, the Netherlands Association of Mayors and the partners of the Network for Resilience. The basic principle is that intimidation and threats are not part of political office, that office holders are not alone and reporting incidents is important. A step-by-step plan has also been developed together with the Ministry of Justice and Security to quickly follow up on the report. In addition, extra efforts will be made in the coming period to provide a safe place to live for decentralized administrators, by exploring how safety measures can be better matched to the need and can be financed.
Strengthening municipalities
In many municipalities and also provinces there is still too little insight into the processes within their own organization that are susceptible to undermining, such as licensing or enforcement. Small municipalities then have little capacity to get started with this. Together with the RIECs (Regional Information and Expertise Centres), extra efforts are being made to gain more insight into the vulnerability of these processes. In addition, money will be made available to further disseminate the lessons learned about the approach to security.
View of Undermining
The public dashboard View of Undermining makes criminal patterns and phenomena visible at regional, municipal, district and even neighborhood level. In this way, municipalities receive more information about subversive crime, for example about the young increase in drug crime, in order to strengthen their preventive approach.
Theo Weterings, mayor of Tilburg and chairman of the steering group View on Undermining: ‘With the data from the dashboard View on Undermining, we as municipalities get a better picture of the breeding grounds of undermining crime. As a local government, this means we are better able to implement a preventive policy to combat subversive crime. By working together as municipalities, the government and implementing organisations, we have achieved results that we could not have achieved as separate parties. As a coalition, we are pleased that thanks to the efforts of the Cabinet View on Undermining and the careful approach that has been developed over the past four years, it can be continued.’
At present, 14 municipalities are part of the View on Undermining coalition. Together with the VNG and other partners, the extra money will be used to examine how more (small) municipalities can be involved. In addition, the dashboard is expanded with analyzes on quality of life and safety, housing, holiday parks and social unrest.
The investments of 10 million per year over the next 10 years in the resilience of public administration are part of the government-wide approach against organized subversive crime.