Minister Yesilgöz expresses confidence in police top, but does monitor

Dilan Yesilgöz, Minister of Justice and Security, expressed her confidence in the police top in the House on Thursday.Image ANP

This placed Yesilgöz against a parliamentary majority of VVD, D66, PVV and SP. The four parties stated in a joint motion that, since 2020, various studies have been pushing for changing the poor leadership culture at the National Unit, but that the corps leadership has so far failed to achieve this.

At the Specialist Operations Service (DSO), one of the seven services of the National Unit, three officers committed suicide in the past two years. Difficult studies showed that these suicides were work-related and that managers did not respond adequately to signals about mental problems. There was also bullying, opposition and ‘negative attention’.

“The workplace deserves better,” said PVV MP Lilian Helder. ‘Trade unions and the House have had to enforce these investigations, the House and the Minister have not been fully informed. I have no confidence in a corps leadership that operates like this.’ SP MP Michiel van Nispen spoke of ‘destructive investigations’.

Safe working environment

Hanneke van der Werf, who as a D66 Member of Parliament took the lead in the motion submitted, said: ‘The people who work day in day out on our safety deserve a safe working environment. That has not been the case at the National Unit for too long.’ VVD MP Ingrid Michon-Derkzen said that ‘the people who do this important work every day should come first’. Shielded operations are carried out at the DSO, such as working under cover and witness protection programs.

The minister and the House agreed that a committee chaired by former mayor Bernt Schneiders, who will shortly issue an advice on the future-proofing of the National Unit, should remain active for longer. Schneiders is researching the way in which the National Unit has been integrated into the National Police, which was formed in 2013.

In an interim report in February, Schneiders already concluded that the tasks of the National Unit are ‘too great diversity’ and that they cannot be managed in the same way as the ten regional units of the National Police.

Schneiders will continue to ‘monitor’ for at least another year how the police force is implementing its forthcoming recommendations. Yesilgöz emphasized that Schneiders ‘does not take over any powers’. As far as she is concerned, there is no question of ‘putting the police top under guardianship’, as had been suggested in an earlier debate.

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