From Distrust to Trust in Public Services

A New Balance Is Needed to Improve Decision-Making
The necessary changes are primarily a matter of striking a balance. The current emphasis on management and accountability is too one-sided and does not do justice to the multitude of objectives and values in public service delivery. It is not a matter of one or the other. Policy departments will need to be more open to autonomy in implementation. For accountability, greater use can be made of tools from the stewardship model, such as horizontal accountability, status reports on implementation, and public oversight. For the steering and accountability indicators, we propose three approaches to restore balance.

1. From production, efficiency, and compliance to citizen-centered, quality, and customized services.
2. From accountability (looking back) to joint management of policy and implementation (looking ahead).
3. From input/throughput to output/outcome indicators for social impacts/challenges.

A better balance will lead to a more effective weighing of interests in the workplace, allowing for greater flexibility to prioritize citizens and societal challenges and to provide tailored solutions where necessary.

Greater trust in the dialogue between policymakers and those responsible for implementation

To achieve a better balance between policy and implementation—shifting from mistrust to trust in implementation—a different attitude is needed from both politicians and policy departments. The indicators are not primarily intended to hold anyone accountable, but to guide the process collectively. The purpose of the indicators is to facilitate dialogue between policymakers and those responsible for implementation. How do policy objectives translate into implementation, and what are the priorities? The set of indicators should give those responsible for implementation more leeway to be agile and innovative, with greater attention to the human dimension. This requires more than just numbers and indicators. These provide too narrow and superficial a picture of service delivery. They tend to discourage implementation rather than encourage it. A richer form of accountability[i] —one that not only quantifies but also narrates, using visuals and stories—helps better facilitate the conversation about service delivery and the dilemmas encountered in practice. Of course, the implementing agencies must live up to that trust. They need to be more sensitive to the political impact of the services, adopt an open attitude—including regarding problems (“no surprises”)—and first try to resolve bottlenecks on their own rather than immediately turning to the client for help.

Data innovation offers opportunities for renewal of management

The expanded capabilities in data usage offer many opportunities to provide figures for new performance indicators. A key prerequisite, however, is that implementing agencies improve their information management systems. Due to the many mergers and budget cuts of the past decades, many implementing agencies face the challenge of making data and systems more consistent and better integrated. Without this consistency, it takes a great deal of effort to provide insight into and report on service delivery, and the administrative burden remains high. In addition, implementing agencies are no longer solely dependent on available internal data; increasingly, they can draw on external data from other (public) agencies. This is an essential source to leverage, particularly for indicators focused on the societal impacts of program implementation.

Use the momentum to proactively initiate changes through policy

There is now momentum to make this shift. It is important that implementing agencies do not wait for policy departments to initiate changes. After all, the necessary change requires the empowerment of the implementation process, with implementing agencies playing an equal role. Instead of focusing primarily on the wishes and interests of policy departments, public service providers must focus more on what citizens and civil society partners need. They will have to take the initiative themselves and develop concrete proposals and conduct experiments on how to strike a better balance between guidance and accountability. Based on their practical experience, they know best what changes are needed. In doing so, implementing agencies can draw on the experiences of other agencies and engage in learning with one another, as more implementing agencies are addressing this issue. Where to start to put this change into practice? The following three steps provide a good starting point.

1. Engage in discussions with clients and the owner regarding the implementation of the stewardship model, in accordance with the recommendations of the “Werk aan Uitvoering” report.
2. Identifying one or two new performance indicators that support shared objectives and are focused on the intended social impact of the services.
3. To take stock of the multitude of current performance metrics in order to eliminate those that contribute little.

[i] D. Heerschop and H. van der Vlist (2020). Work in Progress, Phase 2: Action Perspectives and a Summary of the Analysis, ABDTOPConsult

[ii] The Pursuit of Public Values (2021), Roeland Stolk, Henk Wesseling, and Pepijn van der Beek, Boom Bestuuskunde

[iii] J. Scherpenisse, J. Vos, M. van Twist (2020), “More Effective Accountability Through Leadership,” NSOB