Sensemaking
#13Key Findings
The Netherlands falls into the middle ranks (rank 13) in the category of sensemaking.
The government lacks a dedicated central unit for strategic foresight. Civil-servant training procedures have been criticized as focusing too much on operational management and recruitment rather than strategic governance.
Since 2021, policy proposals for measures costing over €20 million must include explanations of goals and instruments, along with monitoring instruments. Surveys have found that lawmakers tend to treat assessments as a formality, prioritizing political goals over policy effectiveness.
An ambitious new Environment Act has streamlined a patchwork of sustainability goals into a single complex set of measures. Parts of the government have begun treating ex post evaluation of individual polities as part of a broader evaluation of policy portfolios. It is not yet clear whether this is informing evaluation practices at the departmental levels.
The government lacks a dedicated central unit for strategic foresight. Civil-servant training procedures have been criticized as focusing too much on operational management and recruitment rather than strategic governance.
Since 2021, policy proposals for measures costing over €20 million must include explanations of goals and instruments, along with monitoring instruments. Surveys have found that lawmakers tend to treat assessments as a formality, prioritizing political goals over policy effectiveness.
An ambitious new Environment Act has streamlined a patchwork of sustainability goals into a single complex set of measures. Parts of the government have begun treating ex post evaluation of individual polities as part of a broader evaluation of policy portfolios. It is not yet clear whether this is informing evaluation practices at the departmental levels.
Graph View
Graph View
To what extent can the central government foster the capacity for strategic foresight and anticipatory innovation within its organization?
10
9
9
The central government can foster the capacity for strategic foresight and anticipatory innovation within its organization.
8
7
6
7
6
Most of the time, the central government can foster the capacity for strategic foresight and anticipatory innovation within its organization.
5
4
3
4
3
The central government is rarely capable of fostering the capacity for strategic foresight and anticipatory innovation within its organization.
2
1
1
The central government is not capable of fostering the capacity for strategic foresight and anticipatory innovation within its organization.
The coalition agreement for the Rutte IV government was entitled, “Looking after each other, and toward the future” (“Omkijken naar elkaar, vooruitkijken naar de toekomst”). “Looking after each other” implied paying detailed attention to what had gone wrong in the past in terms of miscommunication and distrust. Arguably, the central government paid most attention to restoring citizens’ trust. The key notion here was replacing bureaucratic rigidity by “customization” (“maatwerk”) as a solution for citizens who might otherwise fall between the cracks. Several of the major executive agencies have set up so-called customized workplaces. There are now several within the Employee Insurance Agency, as well as within the Social Insurance Bank. Customized workplaces are also emerging in other places: for example, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) in Amsterdam has opened its first customized work desk, and since 2021, the central government has maintained a Multiproblem Measurement Desk to help implementers in multiproblem situations.
As to be expected from a government with a prime minister who quipped that politicians with future vision ought to see their eye doctors urgently, there is no dedicated central government unit for strategic foresight. In a 2021 study, public administration scholars observed that the Algemene Bestuursdienst – a training and selection center for a pool of some 1,500 high-level civil servants for top-level positions in all Dutch departments – has too little strategic orientation and is too focused on operational management and recruitment, thus failing to help managers see links between present and future social tasks. In 2022, the Ministry for the Interior published a “Guide to Civil Servant Craftsmanship” (“Gids Ambtelijk Vakmanschap”) that is manifestly a response to disturbed politician-civil servant relationships (see also “Quality of Horizontal Coordination”). Regarding a more strategic approach, both the Council for Public Administration and the Dutch School for Public Administration have published reports focusing on transition management and the need for policy learning as novel approaches to policy innovation in the face of systemic change.
The years 2022 and 2023 saw an avalanche of futures studies by all government-supported knowledge and advisory institutes (CPB, SCP, CBS, KNMI, PBL, etc.) and the agricultural university (Wageningen University Research). All of these studies used standard scenario methodology. The Scientific Council for Government Policy produced an awareness-raising major futures study on the challenges of AI as a key system-wide technology. Since spring 2020, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has operated a behavioral unit, originally tasked with supporting COVID-19 policy. The behavioral approach to policy design is also being picked up, less formally, by the CPB, SCP and PBL. For example, the government has produced lists of what individual citizens or families can do to alleviate the burdens of climate change and energy reduction.
Parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt, by adopted motion, advocated the establishment of a think tank focusing on the future of taxation and the tax services. New GL/PvdA leader and former Green Deal Eurocommissioner Frans Timmermans has also called for long-term future policy studies by “cathedral architects.” Universities and some larger municipalities have started policy labs, frequently as frugal public/private partnerships and with AI startups and businesses as private partners.
All in all, the Netherlands confirms its image as a very reluctant governance and policy innovator (see previous SGI reports) that is chronically delayed in arriving at major decisions concerning its strategic future.
Citations:
Boonstra. 2022. “Overheid scoort het slechtst op verandervermogen.” Binnenlands Bestuur, August 12.
NRC. 2023. “Waar blijft het toekomstbeeld van Nederland?” NRC March 14.
Chavannes, De Correspondent. 2022. “Nederland komt chronisch te laat met grote beslissingen. Niet handig, niet verstandig, vaak schadelijk.” 23 June.
ABD Blad. 2021. “Onderzoek functioneren ABD: de ABD moet strategischer, marken dat niet alleen.” March 19.
Groene Amsterdammer, van der Ven. 2023. “Verbeeldingskracht in het land van Mark Rutte.” November 15.
Oudman. 2023. “De grote weeffout in het landbouwakkoord: zonder visie valt er niks te polderen.” De Correspondent October 17.
NOS Nieuws. 2023. “Timmermans in lezing: nu is de tijd voor langetermijnplannen.” September 10.
Boonstra. 2023. “ROB: durf te vallen, opstaan en weer doorgaan.” Binnenlands Bestuur, April 21.
Rijksoverheid. n.d. “De Gids Ambtelijk Vakmanschap.”
RIVM. n.d. “About the Behavioural Unit.” https://www.rivm.nl/en/about-rivm/organisation/behavioural-unit
NL AI Coalitie. n.d. “ELSA Lab Public Policy.” nlaic.com, consulted 13 January 2024.
WRR. 2021. “WRR-Rapport nr. 105: Opgave AI. De nieuwe systeemtechnologie.”
As to be expected from a government with a prime minister who quipped that politicians with future vision ought to see their eye doctors urgently, there is no dedicated central government unit for strategic foresight. In a 2021 study, public administration scholars observed that the Algemene Bestuursdienst – a training and selection center for a pool of some 1,500 high-level civil servants for top-level positions in all Dutch departments – has too little strategic orientation and is too focused on operational management and recruitment, thus failing to help managers see links between present and future social tasks. In 2022, the Ministry for the Interior published a “Guide to Civil Servant Craftsmanship” (“Gids Ambtelijk Vakmanschap”) that is manifestly a response to disturbed politician-civil servant relationships (see also “Quality of Horizontal Coordination”). Regarding a more strategic approach, both the Council for Public Administration and the Dutch School for Public Administration have published reports focusing on transition management and the need for policy learning as novel approaches to policy innovation in the face of systemic change.
The years 2022 and 2023 saw an avalanche of futures studies by all government-supported knowledge and advisory institutes (CPB, SCP, CBS, KNMI, PBL, etc.) and the agricultural university (Wageningen University Research). All of these studies used standard scenario methodology. The Scientific Council for Government Policy produced an awareness-raising major futures study on the challenges of AI as a key system-wide technology. Since spring 2020, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has operated a behavioral unit, originally tasked with supporting COVID-19 policy. The behavioral approach to policy design is also being picked up, less formally, by the CPB, SCP and PBL. For example, the government has produced lists of what individual citizens or families can do to alleviate the burdens of climate change and energy reduction.
Parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt, by adopted motion, advocated the establishment of a think tank focusing on the future of taxation and the tax services. New GL/PvdA leader and former Green Deal Eurocommissioner Frans Timmermans has also called for long-term future policy studies by “cathedral architects.” Universities and some larger municipalities have started policy labs, frequently as frugal public/private partnerships and with AI startups and businesses as private partners.
All in all, the Netherlands confirms its image as a very reluctant governance and policy innovator (see previous SGI reports) that is chronically delayed in arriving at major decisions concerning its strategic future.
Citations:
Boonstra. 2022. “Overheid scoort het slechtst op verandervermogen.” Binnenlands Bestuur, August 12.
NRC. 2023. “Waar blijft het toekomstbeeld van Nederland?” NRC March 14.
Chavannes, De Correspondent. 2022. “Nederland komt chronisch te laat met grote beslissingen. Niet handig, niet verstandig, vaak schadelijk.” 23 June.
ABD Blad. 2021. “Onderzoek functioneren ABD: de ABD moet strategischer, marken dat niet alleen.” March 19.
Groene Amsterdammer, van der Ven. 2023. “Verbeeldingskracht in het land van Mark Rutte.” November 15.
Oudman. 2023. “De grote weeffout in het landbouwakkoord: zonder visie valt er niks te polderen.” De Correspondent October 17.
NOS Nieuws. 2023. “Timmermans in lezing: nu is de tijd voor langetermijnplannen.” September 10.
Boonstra. 2023. “ROB: durf te vallen, opstaan en weer doorgaan.” Binnenlands Bestuur, April 21.
Rijksoverheid. n.d. “De Gids Ambtelijk Vakmanschap.”
RIVM. n.d. “About the Behavioural Unit.” https://www.rivm.nl/en/about-rivm/organisation/behavioural-unit
NL AI Coalitie. n.d. “ELSA Lab Public Policy.” nlaic.com, consulted 13 January 2024.
WRR. 2021. “WRR-Rapport nr. 105: Opgave AI. De nieuwe systeemtechnologie.”
Graph View
To what extent does the government conduct high-quality impact assessments to evaluate the potential effects of prepared legislation before implementation?
10
9
9
The government draws on high-quality RIAs to assess the potential impact of prepared legislation before implementation.
8
7
6
7
6
In most cases, the government draws on high-quality RIAs to assess the potential impact of prepared legislation before implementation.
5
4
3
4
3
The government rarely draws on high-quality RIAs to assess the potential impact of prepared legislation before implementation.
2
1
1
The government does not draw on high-quality RIAs to assess the potential impact of prepared legislation before implementation.
(In this text, “regulatory impact assessment” has the meaning of “all modes of ex ante, contemporaneous and ex post policy evaluation.”) In recent years the Dutch government has written mainstream public administration and policy analysis insights into law in the form of one synthesizing policy evaluation system (the Rijksbreed evaluatiestelsel).
According to Article 3.3 of the Compatibility Law (CW), parliamentarians and ministers are responsible for the effectiveness and efficiency of the financial management of tax resources. Article 3.1 requires that government policy proposals should include an explanation of 1) the objectives being pursued, along with their effectiveness and efficiency; 2) the policy instruments to be used; and 3) the financial impact on the state and, where possible, the financial impact on sectors of society. Specially, since 1 November 2021, policy proposals costing more than €20 million have been required to include an explanation of the policy goals, instruments, effectiveness, and intended monitoring and evaluation instruments, at the request of the House of Representatives.
Stakeholder involvement is preferable; it is ingrained in the Dutch “polder” culture, and (perhaps) therefore not legally required. Stakeholders are the governmental and no-governmental organizations that constitute the policy network around a particular policy issue, as shown by everyday practice or through a force-field analysis (see also “Civil Society”). To ensure that MPs see them, the results of this analytic exercise in policy formulation are to be included in the main text of the bill as proposed to parliament. Scientific standards are imposed by the Knowledge Center for Policy and Regulation (KCBR). Faithful to mainstream public administration and policy analysis, this organization’s Policy Compass recommends paying attention to the reason for the policy proposal, the problem description, the objectives and the need for the proposal. It also asks for a “golden oldie” from public administration: the policy theory, or “the set of assumptions and research results on which the conclusion can be based.” There are also uniform rules for conducting a societal cost-benefit analysis.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, which is legally tasked with supervising all financial activities carried out by other departments, “Policy Choices Explained CW3.1” was evaluated in 2020. Results were doubly disappointing. Departmental policymakers indicated that lawmakers paid little attention to the information provided, which makes the policy framework a compulsory check-box exercise. Policymakers engage in “fiction writing” – that is, they justify policy choices with “technical arguments” that in fact had little or no place in the actual decision-making process. Parliamentarians admit that they often do not focus first on effectiveness and efficiency; rather, their own political priorities take pride of place. Sadly but wisely, the evaluators concluded: “The extent to which political ambitions and effectiveness of concrete policy instruments are linked in the political debate could perhaps be greater than it is now.” It may be assumed this judgment holds for later years as well.
On the bright side, there are plans to include the concept of “broader prosperity” (“brede welvaart”) in the system outlined in the Policy Choices Explained CW3.1 document. The new Policy Compass tool can help with this, as it contains guidelines for the application of the broader prosperity goal and public values in policy preparation. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are also involved.
Citations:
Ministerie van FIN. 2024. “Evaluatiestelsel.” rijksfinancien.nl.
LinkedIn, Van der Knaap. Alles over beleidsevaluatie anno 2023 bij de Rijksoverheid…op éen plek!
Kenniscentrum voor Beleid en Regelgeving, 2023.
L.A. Triesscheijn and F.W. De Jager. 2020. “Evaluatie Beleidskeuzes uitgelegd: toepassing door departementen en gebruik door de Tweede Kamer.” open.overheid.nl.
van der Knaap, P. 2023. “De lange adem van doelmatigheid en politiek.” Bestuurskunde 32 (4).
Kenniscentrum voor beleid en regelgeving. 2024. “Beleidskompas.” rijksoverheid.nl
According to Article 3.3 of the Compatibility Law (CW), parliamentarians and ministers are responsible for the effectiveness and efficiency of the financial management of tax resources. Article 3.1 requires that government policy proposals should include an explanation of 1) the objectives being pursued, along with their effectiveness and efficiency; 2) the policy instruments to be used; and 3) the financial impact on the state and, where possible, the financial impact on sectors of society. Specially, since 1 November 2021, policy proposals costing more than €20 million have been required to include an explanation of the policy goals, instruments, effectiveness, and intended monitoring and evaluation instruments, at the request of the House of Representatives.
Stakeholder involvement is preferable; it is ingrained in the Dutch “polder” culture, and (perhaps) therefore not legally required. Stakeholders are the governmental and no-governmental organizations that constitute the policy network around a particular policy issue, as shown by everyday practice or through a force-field analysis (see also “Civil Society”). To ensure that MPs see them, the results of this analytic exercise in policy formulation are to be included in the main text of the bill as proposed to parliament. Scientific standards are imposed by the Knowledge Center for Policy and Regulation (KCBR). Faithful to mainstream public administration and policy analysis, this organization’s Policy Compass recommends paying attention to the reason for the policy proposal, the problem description, the objectives and the need for the proposal. It also asks for a “golden oldie” from public administration: the policy theory, or “the set of assumptions and research results on which the conclusion can be based.” There are also uniform rules for conducting a societal cost-benefit analysis.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, which is legally tasked with supervising all financial activities carried out by other departments, “Policy Choices Explained CW3.1” was evaluated in 2020. Results were doubly disappointing. Departmental policymakers indicated that lawmakers paid little attention to the information provided, which makes the policy framework a compulsory check-box exercise. Policymakers engage in “fiction writing” – that is, they justify policy choices with “technical arguments” that in fact had little or no place in the actual decision-making process. Parliamentarians admit that they often do not focus first on effectiveness and efficiency; rather, their own political priorities take pride of place. Sadly but wisely, the evaluators concluded: “The extent to which political ambitions and effectiveness of concrete policy instruments are linked in the political debate could perhaps be greater than it is now.” It may be assumed this judgment holds for later years as well.
On the bright side, there are plans to include the concept of “broader prosperity” (“brede welvaart”) in the system outlined in the Policy Choices Explained CW3.1 document. The new Policy Compass tool can help with this, as it contains guidelines for the application of the broader prosperity goal and public values in policy preparation. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are also involved.
Citations:
Ministerie van FIN. 2024. “Evaluatiestelsel.” rijksfinancien.nl.
LinkedIn, Van der Knaap. Alles over beleidsevaluatie anno 2023 bij de Rijksoverheid…op éen plek!
Kenniscentrum voor Beleid en Regelgeving, 2023.
L.A. Triesscheijn and F.W. De Jager. 2020. “Evaluatie Beleidskeuzes uitgelegd: toepassing door departementen en gebruik door de Tweede Kamer.” open.overheid.nl.
van der Knaap, P. 2023. “De lange adem van doelmatigheid en politiek.” Bestuurskunde 32 (4).
Kenniscentrum voor beleid en regelgeving. 2024. “Beleidskompas.” rijksoverheid.nl
To what extent does the government effectively incorporate sustainability assessments within the framework of RIAs?
10
9
9
High-quality sustainability assessments are incorporated within regulatory impact assessments.
8
7
6
7
6
High-quality sustainability assessments are, for the most part, incorporated within regulatory impact assessments.
5
4
3
4
3
High-quality sustainability assessments are rarely incorporated within regulatory impact assessments.
2
1
1
Sustainability assessments are not incorporated within regulatory impact assessments.
When in the early 1970s, environmental impact assessments (EIAs) blew over from the United States to Europe, imitation and adoption was fairly straightforward. The purpose was – and still is – to give EIA its rightful place in public decision-making and thereby also increase policy transparency and the involvement of stakeholders and citizens. An Environmental Impact Law determined an EIA procedure in the Netherlands, specifying conditions for public registration of new activities, creating an expert commission (Commissie mer) to advise on all quality aspects and definining the scope of the EIA report (both at the start – scoping document – and the end – the quality assessment – of the report-writing process). It defined the legal requirements for positive decisions by the competent authorities (mostly provincial and municipal governments), although these of course frequently initiated initiatives requiring EIAs themselves themselves. This latter fact underlined the importance of the EIA Commission (Commissie mer) as an independent third party of experts. Under the current EMA (valid until 1 January 2024), competent authorities are required to request all strategic environment assessments (SEAs) and ordinary EIAs for certain complex projects, and ensure that these are reviewed by the National Commission for Environmental Assessment (NCEA). In effect, this means the NCEA has a monopoly for independent quality review of these SEAs and EIAs. In 2017, the NCEA reviewed about 140 projects, 50 of which had been requested voluntarily. The NCEA reviews the documents to ensure the information is complete and correct. In 2017, for example, 70% of the assessments reviewed proved to lack essential information.
Since those early days, the volume and complexity of legislation relating to spatial and environmental aspects of the physical environment and its impact on human beings (particularly but not only, health) has exploded. As a result, current environmental law is fragmented and divided among a large number of different laws and regulations. Each law focuses on a partial interest, and has its own system and terminology. As a result, one law sometimes contradicts another. Environmental law thus delays and frustrates many activities, and sometimes even makes new developments toward greater sustainability impossible.
In the early 2010s, experts started to contemplate possibilities for a more consistent, integrated and procedurally simpler and faster approach to EIA.
The key idea was to turn the attitude of EIA experts and policymakers from, essentially, “No, unless…” into its opposite, “Yes, provided that…” In an “environment vision,” a municipality defines the boundary conditions that activities must meet. As a result, the EIA report, now considered the starting point for developing an environment vision, also changes from thinking about a new activity “from the inside out” to thinking “from the outside in” – that is, the new activity as accommodating and fitting into a broad and flexible environment vision. During the term of the plan, details regarding which developments occur where can be filled in more flexibly than before. Monitoring and interim evaluation studies are part of a flexible, learning-oriented new planning style. Breaking down complex new initiatives into time-specified action plans becomes a repeated learning process without any specific time horizon.
By 2016, the effort to streamline a confusing patchwork of sectionally segmented zoning plans for coherent sustainable development goals resulted in the preliminary decision to replace the rigid system of area-wide “bestemmingsplannen,” or zoning plans, with open and flexible “environment visions” (“omgevingsvisie”) to be developed by all competent authorities. The new Environment Act integrates all 26 laws and regulations in the environmental domain into one law, four governmental decrees or general administrative orders (Algemene Maatregel van Bestuur, AMvB), and one regulation. This system change is among the largest legislative operations in the Netherlands’ recent history, and has major consequences in practice. For this reason, the government reserved a long period for experimenting and experience gathering before actually putting the law into force on 1 January 2024. Both the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and the National Commission for Environmental Assessment (NCEAS) have published a considerable number of pilot reports with case studies. To what extent this is a representative sample or the result of cherry-picking is uncertain.
To make the implementation and operation of the law as simple and unambiguous as possible, the Environmental Law systematics are based on those of EU regulations. By keeping the granting of permits as simple as possible, procedures will not take unnecessarily long. Initiators can quickly obtain clarity for all the activities they wish to carry out by making a single application at a single desk (one-stop shop). To make integrated licensing and decision-making possible, good and coherent data must be available. Digital support – one of the crucial requirements for putting the Environment Act in force – turned out to be a near insurmountable bottleneck, resulting in five delay decisions between 2016 and 1 January 2024, when the law finally took effect.
Of course, not everybody is happy about having a broad and flexible Environment Act. Many interest and stakeholder groups have lost their legal shields; more generally, citizen groups, stakeholder organizations and legal experts have voiced grave concerns about legal assessments and protection under the law. The implementation capacity of the cottage industry of consultancies that produce EIA reports, as well as the supervisory quality-testing capacity of the NCEAS will be stretched to the utmost in the beginning. ICT support is also likely to remain a bottleneck. It could be argued that the idea of broadening EIA procedures and making them more flexible with a view to consistent sustainability policymaking boils down to an effort to replace closed expert and legal judgment with more open and flexible political considerations, in which competing interests will have to be balanced via integrated political judgments. Whether or not this will be successful will in large part depend on the degree to which the public genuinely participates in vision development and monitoring practices.
Citations:
Mer Commissie voor de minirapportage. n.d. “Factsheet: Milieueffectrapportage in een notendop.” commissiemer.nl, consulted January 14, 2024
Infographic, Hoe werkt de mer-procedure. commissiemei.nl, consulted 14 January 2024
NOS. 2015. “Tientallen wetten gebundeld in een Omgevingswet.” Nieuws, May 31.
Ministerie van Infrastructure en Milieu. April 2016. “Omgevingswet in het kort. Ruimte voor ontwikkeling, waarborgen voor kwaliteit.”
Commissionmer. n.d. “Infographic Een goed omgevingsplan (begint) met milieueffectrapportage.”
G. Hoevenaars. 2018. “Independent Quality Control: How Does It Work in the Netherlands?” In Netherlands Commission of Environmental Assessment, Views and Experiences of the NCEA.
G. Hoevenaars. 2018. “The Role of the NCEA in the Netherlands.” In Netherlands Commission of Environmental Assessment, Views and Experiences of the NCEA.
Dirkzwager Legal and Tax. 2024. “Omgevingswet.” www.dirkzwager.nl/omgevingswet/
Since those early days, the volume and complexity of legislation relating to spatial and environmental aspects of the physical environment and its impact on human beings (particularly but not only, health) has exploded. As a result, current environmental law is fragmented and divided among a large number of different laws and regulations. Each law focuses on a partial interest, and has its own system and terminology. As a result, one law sometimes contradicts another. Environmental law thus delays and frustrates many activities, and sometimes even makes new developments toward greater sustainability impossible.
In the early 2010s, experts started to contemplate possibilities for a more consistent, integrated and procedurally simpler and faster approach to EIA.
The key idea was to turn the attitude of EIA experts and policymakers from, essentially, “No, unless…” into its opposite, “Yes, provided that…” In an “environment vision,” a municipality defines the boundary conditions that activities must meet. As a result, the EIA report, now considered the starting point for developing an environment vision, also changes from thinking about a new activity “from the inside out” to thinking “from the outside in” – that is, the new activity as accommodating and fitting into a broad and flexible environment vision. During the term of the plan, details regarding which developments occur where can be filled in more flexibly than before. Monitoring and interim evaluation studies are part of a flexible, learning-oriented new planning style. Breaking down complex new initiatives into time-specified action plans becomes a repeated learning process without any specific time horizon.
By 2016, the effort to streamline a confusing patchwork of sectionally segmented zoning plans for coherent sustainable development goals resulted in the preliminary decision to replace the rigid system of area-wide “bestemmingsplannen,” or zoning plans, with open and flexible “environment visions” (“omgevingsvisie”) to be developed by all competent authorities. The new Environment Act integrates all 26 laws and regulations in the environmental domain into one law, four governmental decrees or general administrative orders (Algemene Maatregel van Bestuur, AMvB), and one regulation. This system change is among the largest legislative operations in the Netherlands’ recent history, and has major consequences in practice. For this reason, the government reserved a long period for experimenting and experience gathering before actually putting the law into force on 1 January 2024. Both the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and the National Commission for Environmental Assessment (NCEAS) have published a considerable number of pilot reports with case studies. To what extent this is a representative sample or the result of cherry-picking is uncertain.
To make the implementation and operation of the law as simple and unambiguous as possible, the Environmental Law systematics are based on those of EU regulations. By keeping the granting of permits as simple as possible, procedures will not take unnecessarily long. Initiators can quickly obtain clarity for all the activities they wish to carry out by making a single application at a single desk (one-stop shop). To make integrated licensing and decision-making possible, good and coherent data must be available. Digital support – one of the crucial requirements for putting the Environment Act in force – turned out to be a near insurmountable bottleneck, resulting in five delay decisions between 2016 and 1 January 2024, when the law finally took effect.
Of course, not everybody is happy about having a broad and flexible Environment Act. Many interest and stakeholder groups have lost their legal shields; more generally, citizen groups, stakeholder organizations and legal experts have voiced grave concerns about legal assessments and protection under the law. The implementation capacity of the cottage industry of consultancies that produce EIA reports, as well as the supervisory quality-testing capacity of the NCEAS will be stretched to the utmost in the beginning. ICT support is also likely to remain a bottleneck. It could be argued that the idea of broadening EIA procedures and making them more flexible with a view to consistent sustainability policymaking boils down to an effort to replace closed expert and legal judgment with more open and flexible political considerations, in which competing interests will have to be balanced via integrated political judgments. Whether or not this will be successful will in large part depend on the degree to which the public genuinely participates in vision development and monitoring practices.
Citations:
Mer Commissie voor de minirapportage. n.d. “Factsheet: Milieueffectrapportage in een notendop.” commissiemer.nl, consulted January 14, 2024
Infographic, Hoe werkt de mer-procedure. commissiemei.nl, consulted 14 January 2024
NOS. 2015. “Tientallen wetten gebundeld in een Omgevingswet.” Nieuws, May 31.
Ministerie van Infrastructure en Milieu. April 2016. “Omgevingswet in het kort. Ruimte voor ontwikkeling, waarborgen voor kwaliteit.”
Commissionmer. n.d. “Infographic Een goed omgevingsplan (begint) met milieueffectrapportage.”
G. Hoevenaars. 2018. “Independent Quality Control: How Does It Work in the Netherlands?” In Netherlands Commission of Environmental Assessment, Views and Experiences of the NCEA.
G. Hoevenaars. 2018. “The Role of the NCEA in the Netherlands.” In Netherlands Commission of Environmental Assessment, Views and Experiences of the NCEA.
Dirkzwager Legal and Tax. 2024. “Omgevingswet.” www.dirkzwager.nl/omgevingswet/
To what extent do government ministries utilize ex post evaluations to improve existing policies?
10
9
9
High-quality ex post evaluations serve as the basis for making adjustments to public policies.
8
7
6
7
6
High-quality ex post evaluations frequently serve as the basis for making adjustments to public policies.
5
4
3
4
3
High-quality ex post evaluations rarely serve as the basis for making adjustments to public policies.
2
1
1
High-quality ex post evaluations are not utilized to make adjustments to public policies.
One optional element of the recently introduced comprehensive system of policy evaluation is a process called Toolbox Policy Evaluation. In an effort to improve the generally contestable nature of departmental policy evaluation, the Toolbox offers practical starting points for indicating the expected effectiveness of spending in advance, and for evaluating it afterward. It appears as if even the Ministry of Finance is looking at policy evaluation not just as an element of ex post financial accountability, but also as part of policy learning cycles. The Toolbox authors claim that the complexity of social tasks and thus of policy learning in multilevel policy environments is taken into account in these instruments.
Part of the Toolbox is a “Guide to Meta Policy Audits” (Handreiking Beleidsoorlichtingen) – that is, a meta-evaluative exercise intended to assess the long-term effectiveness of policies. This may be part of a tendency to move away from a focus on single, case-specific ex post evaluation studies to a focus on the construction of broader, more balanced departmental knowledge portfolios, in which several ex post evaluation studies are embedded as elements in a larger body of knowledge accessible to policymakers and other participants in policy subsystems. The extent to which such trends in evaluation studies really inform evaluation practices at the departmental level is not yet clear.
Citations:
P. van der Knaap. 2023. “De lange adem van doelmatigheid en politiek.” Bestuurskunde 32 (4).
P. van de Knaap, V. Pattyn, and D. Hanemaayer, eds. 2023. Beleidsevaluatie in theorie en praktijk. Boom.
Ministerie van Financiën. n.d. “Handreiking beleidsvoorlichtingen.” archief.rijksfinanciën.nl, consulten January 14, 2024
Knottnerus, A. 2016. “Van casus-specifieke beleidsevaluatie naar systematische opbouw van kennis en ervaring.” Beleidsonderzoek Online May.
FD, Daan Ballegeer and Jean Dohmen. 2021. “Er wordt veel beleid gemaakt waarvan we niet weten of het werkt.” 16 March.
Part of the Toolbox is a “Guide to Meta Policy Audits” (Handreiking Beleidsoorlichtingen) – that is, a meta-evaluative exercise intended to assess the long-term effectiveness of policies. This may be part of a tendency to move away from a focus on single, case-specific ex post evaluation studies to a focus on the construction of broader, more balanced departmental knowledge portfolios, in which several ex post evaluation studies are embedded as elements in a larger body of knowledge accessible to policymakers and other participants in policy subsystems. The extent to which such trends in evaluation studies really inform evaluation practices at the departmental level is not yet clear.
Citations:
P. van der Knaap. 2023. “De lange adem van doelmatigheid en politiek.” Bestuurskunde 32 (4).
P. van de Knaap, V. Pattyn, and D. Hanemaayer, eds. 2023. Beleidsevaluatie in theorie en praktijk. Boom.
Ministerie van Financiën. n.d. “Handreiking beleidsvoorlichtingen.” archief.rijksfinanciën.nl, consulten January 14, 2024
Knottnerus, A. 2016. “Van casus-specifieke beleidsevaluatie naar systematische opbouw van kennis en ervaring.” Beleidsonderzoek Online May.
FD, Daan Ballegeer and Jean Dohmen. 2021. “Er wordt veel beleid gemaakt waarvan we niet weten of het werkt.” 16 March.