The outgoing cabinet wants to better distribute government officials across the country and no longer automatically have them work in the Randstad, Minister Hugo de Jonge writes in a letter to the House of Representatives. The cabinet agreed to this on Wednesday.
Government services and parts of ministries have been located too much in the Randstad in recent decades, causing ‘undesirable differences between regions’, the minister writes.
The decision follows the ‘Every Region Counts’ report from three important advisory bodies last year. In debates in the House of Representatives, Hugo de Jonge already announced that he would come up with a plan for a new type of dispersal policy for government officials.
PTT, RDW and DUO to Groningen
The Groningen and Drenthe King’s Commissioners, René Paas and Jetta Klijnsma, also expressly requested this in those debates. The relocation of part of PostNL, the National Road Transport Agency (RDW) and the education service DUO to Groningen and CBS and ABP to Limburg from the 1970s are examples. Although there has been strong criticism of this spread in the years that followed, the policy for the regions was indeed successful, Paas stated last year.
Outgoing Minister De Jonge has not yet commented on which government services are currently being considered. He first talks to regions about what they want and what they have to offer. In addition, government services and ministries will no longer have a completely free hand in choosing new locations, but the Ministry of the Interior will provide advice. This applies if plans are made for housing more than a hundred workplaces.
It will take a while, De Jonge predicts. The plans for 2024 to 2028 do not yet include a distribution policy because this takes more time. This will mainly concern new branches, not directly the relocation of existing services. Because that has too many consequences for employees. However, it is already a policy that when services shrink, the Randstad is first looked at and when growth occurs, the region is looked at.
In consultation with the provinces of Groningen and Drenthe, a part of the Tax Authorities was discussed. More civil servants from various ministries should also work in flexi-places in a ‘government hub’ in Assen.
‘Efficiency was often the deciding factor’
“The differences between the regions in the Netherlands are too great,” writes De Jonge. ‘For years we have mainly looked at housing from a Hague perspective, which has resulted in more government services being located in the Randstad and there being too little government employment in the provinces outside the Randstad. Efficiency was often the deciding factor, while that is not the only thing that counts. There are also other interests, such as the presence of the government in the region, the proximity and visibility of the government for the residents of the region. This has to change.’
According to De Jonge, the government must also make more efforts to find suitable staff in regions further from the Randstad. If there do not seem to be enough qualified people, work can first be done remotely after the move. The relevant government agency can then work with schools and higher education to train more staff.
Tags: Civil servants leave Randstad promises Minister Hugo Jonge North expect government services
