Introduction

Policy analysis at the local level shows a more or less identical pattern as the developments at the national level, which has already been discussed in previous chapters. Much effort was put into the process to rationalise the policymaking process. In the 1970s and 1980s, numerous techniques like cost–benefit analysis and multicriteria techniques were introduced and much energy was put into the rationalisation of the budget process. Under the influence of the New Public Management (NPM), new and different methodologies have been introduced at the local level. Two important developments are the introduction of policy and management instruments (Beleids- en Beheersinstrumentarium; BBI) in 1987 and the introduction of the Budget and Account Cycle in 2004. In recent years, municipalities seem to have moved towards a more liberal interpretation of the Budget and Account Cycle. In this chapter, a reconstruction is made of efforts at the local level to rationalise the policymaking process. The different initiatives at the local level will be evaluated, both from an institutional perspective and from a methodological point of view.

The Dutch political system

The Netherlands is a decentralised unitary state with three levels of government: central government, regional government (provinces) and local government. The Constitution stipulates that provinces and municipalities are established (and disbanded) by law, which indicates the political and administrative organisation of the sub-national level of government and outlines the degree of supervision that is to be exercised by central government over lower levels of government. Local authority functions can be carried out either autonomously or under a system of joint authority, where the municipalities act as agents for a higher authority.

In the mid-1960s, the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) was introduced in the US. The idea of rationalising the policy process was an attractive one. In 1974, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (Vereniging Nederlandse Gemeenten; VNG) started a working group to examine the possibilities for setting up a comprehensive system of policy analysis for the local level, the so-called ‘municipal policy analysis’ (‘beleidsanalyse gemeenten’; BAG). That initiative gained much attention during the 1970s. Approximately 10 years later, doubts were raised.