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WORK IN PROGRESS

The Fifth Virtual Roundtable

Turner, in collaboration with Flevum, is organizing a series of roundtable discussions on Strategy Execution in in the Public sector. And the much-discussed relationships between politics, policy, and implementation. Each session features a different case study or perspective. Practical, digital, concise, and accessible. The sessions have received positive reviews and high praise from public sector leaders: “In these roundtable discussions, we engage in strategic thinking about implementation.”

Work in progress has taken off

Through the government-wide “Werk aan Uitvoering” program, the government aims to improve public services. Carsten Herstel, Director General of Social Security and Integration at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, is enthusiastic about the program. He was the speaker at the fifth Virtual Round Table organized by Turner and Flevum.

As a result of various problems in the implementation of laws and regulations—culminating in the child care subsidy scandal—the government has launched a new program: “Work on Implementation.” The goal of this program is to better align policy implementation with the expectations and needs of citizens and business owners—or, as it is commonly referred to, to bring the “human touch” back to public services.

Carsten Herstel, who has been working for the government for over thirty years—the last three and a half of which were spent at the Ministry of Social Affairs—remembers well how this issue came to the forefront. In the summer of 2019, news broke that the UWV was facing yet another problem: benefits were being wrongfully paid to inmates due to a poorly designed data link. It immediately became a political issue as well, even though, in percentage terms, it involved a very small portion of the total budget. Wouter Koolmees, then Minister of Social Affairs, decided to organize a workshop to discuss this case in a broader context. Of course, the UWV is not the only implementing agency that encounters these kinds of problems: the Tax and Customs Administration, the NVWA, the CBR, DUO, the SVB, and all other agencies also sometimes run into issues related to the practical implementation of policy. The causes are varied: IT issues, budget cuts, a backlog of tasks, and technical debt. But above all, it’s a lack of attention to implementation, according to Herstel. All too often, something goes wrong in the transition from policy to implementation—in other words, Strategy Execution. And all too often, the consequences are harsh for citizens.

Carsten Herstel, Director General of Social Security and Integration

Feedback Loop

The conclusion reached during that workshop was that more attention needed to be paid to the feedback loop between politics, policy, and implementation: the “trialogue,” as it came to be known. That was the beginning of “Werk aan Uitvoering,” a program for which millions have been allocated and which has since gained momentum, he explains. Since then, Herstel and his colleagues have implemented various changes. Incidentally, in the past, departments did indeed receive reports that certain implementing agencies were given—or took—too little leeway to apply a human touch. It’s just that no action was taken on them. “The lens through which we viewed things wasn’t quite right.” The ministry’s leadership now also encourages people to ask “crazy questions” and to keep probing. That was certainly not the norm before. “We are, of course, system thinkers and have long believed that N=1 had no value. But N=1 does indeed apply; every signal can have significant value.”

The new feedback loop has led politicians and policymakers to engage in more dialogue with one another. This has taken concrete form in the Status Report on Implementation (social security), which is sent to the House of Representatives annually. While we were initially cautious, this report now makes a significant contribution to the feedback loop, particularly regarding policy dilemmas. Take, for example, the NOW scheme, which was established during the COVID-19 crisis. It was a simple scheme that was likely open to abuse. Instead of burdening the program with all sorts of safeguards, the government chose to implement it quickly and with minimal barriers to entry.

When the NOW scheme was introduced, Minister Koolmees called on companies not to take advantage of its simplicity: audits would be conducted afterward. This marked a break with the past, when the government’s approach was based primarily on distrust rather than trust in citizens. That reflects a very different view of human nature. With the “Implementation Reports,” the ministries and implementing agencies have also committed to avoiding overly euphemistic descriptions of problems. When the implementation of a new technology revealed that, due to human error (the application of an incorrect percentage), the SVB had been paying certain groups too little or too much in state old-age pension (AOW) for years, this information immediately entered the feedback loop. Correcting this error was then tackled with great efficiency.

Other Ratios

Herstel believes that the feedback loop has clearly improved the relationship between the three participating parties. The feedback loop has even been intensified recently with a “Bottleneck Letter”. In a sense, this is a “drastic measure” that shouldn’t really be necessary, but one that allows urgent bottlenecks to be addressed more quickly. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment is asking the implementing agencies for an overview of the bottlenecks in legislation and regulations, so that it can then forward this to policymakers. The problems are not “greenwashed,” as Herstel claims. This “Bottleneck Letter” appears to be working well and is helping to shape the agenda of the Social Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives.

In short, the feedback loop is beginning to gain traction and is clearly contributing to a policy that, in addition to the effectiveness and legitimacy of processes, is also more focused on the human dimension. One example cited by Herstel is the recovery policy. While this policy is governed by rules, it has historically—with the support of the judiciary—been aimed at recovering the maximum amount possible. This often caused problems for people, in part because the deadlines citizens must meet are often shorter than those applicable to the government. The UWV and the ministry have adjusted this, resulting in less harshness. Another example is that many application forms are now written in simpler Dutch, so that people don’t get lost amid the various programs and agencies. “It’s complex, but I feel like we’re making a lot of progress,” says Herstel. “And our Secretary-General, Loes Mulder, deserves special credit for that.”

The discussion revealed that collaboration becomes more complex when implementing organizations deal with multiple commissioning ministries. This requires organized coordination among commissioning entities, which is difficult in practice due to conflicting interests. This is also reflected in the management of supply chains. Policy departments primarily evaluate implementing organizations based on individual performance. The principal-agent model has led to organizations within the same chain (such as the criminal justice chain comprising the Police, the Public Prosecution Service, and the Judiciary) becoming competitors rather than partners. Yet they should be encouraged to work together to solve societal issues and improve service delivery. These dilemmas call for open discussions between implementing agencies and their clients and owners—about changes in management approaches, how to collaborate with trust on societal challenges, and what each party’s role is in this process.

"No additional tasks"

Despite the positive results of the “Werk aan Uitvoering” program, there are still plenty of points for discussion, as became clear during the Virtual Round Table. The focus on implementing agencies has meant that they are not always enthusiastic about taking on additional tasks. This is, of course, partly due to the labor market, but also to the complexity of the regulations. Organizations often deal with hundreds of thousands of citizens—sometimes even more—and in such cases, tailored solutions a challenge for everyone. There is simply no capacity for it. “As a government, you also have to be reliable,” says Herstel. “That’s why I always advocate for a certain degree of deliberation.”

If, for example, we also want to place an Emergency Fund with one of the implementing agencies during this energy crisis, those agencies aren’t exactly eager to take on even more work. Now, the administration of the Emergency Fund—which energy companies had already experimented with—is being entrusted to a private foundation, naturally resulting in fewer options for oversight.

Moreover, the complexity of laws and regulations is a political reality. Laws can be amended at the last minute, and in such cases, there must be room for thorough implementation reviews. That room is often lacking. And, not unimportantly: a tailored approach does not mean that there are no longer any standards or frameworks. It’s all too easy these days to say that the professional must be “in the lead,” but the question is: in what regard? You can give a professional certain responsibilities, but that must never lead to arbitrariness. You also face the challenge and have the responsibility to provide guidelines. These are necessary to objectify often subjective topics—such as conflicting views of human nature or what is or isn’t harsh—and to make them scalable and manageable. Think of definitions and the harmonization and scaling up of processes.

KEY MECHANISMS OF STRATEGYEXECUTION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR:

  1. Cadans Status Update
  2. Feedback Loop
  3. Letter on Bottlenecks
  4. Choose together (“instead of stacking”)
  5. Phase-out and Phase-in Assessment
  6. Workshops for People with Disabilities
Suggestions for and possible follow-up topics based on the discussion:
  1. Jointly Choosing Priorities in Strategy Execution Between Policy and Operations: How Do You Avoid “Piling Up”?
  2. Responsible freedom: What does a healthy balance look like between professionals’ freedom and expertise versus harmonized processes? How do you transition from an organization of professionals to a professional organization—one that offers recognizable, scalable, and manageable Professional Services?
  3. Multiple Issues

Work in Progress

More insights into the public sectors and into "Werk Aan Uitvoering"

Public sector
Alexander Bruinsma

Give the performance room to breathe

Christiaan Gort of Turner writes on Platform O, the online platform for public administration, about the human touch in implementing organizations. What can politicians and policymakers do to bring that

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