Ombudsman again critical of the municipality of Amsterdam: ‘Do not accept tasks from the central government if you doubt their feasibility’

Residents who do not receive the money they are entitled to in a timely manner after disruptions to parking apps, uncertainty about whether or not a leasehold must be paid, errors regarding participation in the construction of homes in Zuidoost: this is a selection of the 1,200 complaints about the municipality that Amsterdam ombudsman Munish Ramlal has received this past year.

That is about the same as the previous year and again most complaints were about problems surrounding parking fines. Ramlal is once again critical of the municipality, which, according to him, thinks too much from its own rules, instead of from the living environment of its residents.

Stuck in system

Yet Ramlal is remarkably mild for civil servants who, according to him, ‘are eager to help, but are structurally overloaded and stuck in the swamp of their soured organization’. Ramlal also notes that the municipality is taking good steps in helping people with simple requests for help (renewing a driver’s license, for example), but that with more difficult questions there is a ‘systemic problem’ that is largely caused by the central government.

For example, Ramlal writes: ‘Since decentralization in 2015, Amsterdam has had too much on its plate, without having the necessary resources to solve it. The organization constantly makes every effort to carry out the tasks properly. This has led to the organization becoming a burnout bureaucracy. (…) Municipalities are in one mission impossible deposited by the central government.’

According to him, the result is that the people who need help most, from victims of the benefits affair to people with complex care needs, cannot be helped properly. To help them, cooperation is required between, for example, the municipality, the police and the housing association, but that takes time and attention that is often not available. This also applies to the waiting lists in youth care and to the labyrinth of procedures surrounding children who need help.

Too little on the street

‘The citizen becomes frustrated as a result. But that certainly also applies to the civil servant who tries to help,’ says Ramlal. ‘My advice to municipalities: no longer accept tasks from the central government if you doubt their feasibility.’ It is a call to councilor Hester van Buren (Finance), who has long been calling for more money from The Hague to be able to carry out the increased number of tasks.

However, according to ombudsman Ramlal, there is still plenty that the municipality itself could improve. He points out that officials still don’t go out on the streets enough to see complaints from residents with their own eyes and that too little attention is paid to personal circumstances. Ramlal also mentions the announcement that Amsterdam will be less likely to go to court against its own citizens as something that he ‘unfortunately has not noticed much of so far’.

In his recommendation, Ramlal advocates a ‘bureaucratic emergency number’ that should be able to be called if someone gets completely stuck in his or her request for help. Ramlal also believes that politicians too often promise all kinds of things that cannot be fulfilled. ‘Overpromise and underdeliver is a recipe for distrust,” says the report, which will be discussed in the Amsterdam city council before the summer.

About the author: Tim Wagemakers has been studying Amsterdam politics for almost 10 years and has been writing about it for Het Parool as a political reporter since 2022.