Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, The Netherlands (selection and translation Jack Kruf) | May 2011

One of the most debated and studied terms in the Netherlands is that of the ‘risk-regulation reflex’. This debate began in 2009 and is still ongoing. The reflex in question is “the tendency of the government to constantly reduce risks, whether or not in response to an incident, and to regard this as a self-evident task.” A re-examination provides insight into the quest, particularly in political and administrative circles, to identify the very heart of democracy in the Netherlands.

This is the definition set out in the Risks and Responsibilities Programme adopted by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (2011). The impetus for this arose at the end of 2009, when the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations undertook to provide a general review of the government’s role and responsibility in dealing with (primarily physical) risks and incidents.

The reason for this commitment was a number of incidents in the preceding decade, as well as an increased focus within public administration on risk management, driven by the decentralisation of tasks from central government to local authorities and the introduction of the statutory ‘resilience’ provision in municipal budgets.

The term risk-regulation reflex was coined by Margo Trappenburg during Risk Day on 19 May 2010, and included in her essay in the 2011 collection Safety Above All? Essays on the Causes and Consequences of the Risk-Regulation Reflex.

Trappenburg says of the reflex on her website: “The risk-regulation reflex consists of two deeply rooted tendencies in response to risks and incidents: on the one hand, over-regulation (with all its adverse consequences); on the other, the tendency to place responsibility with the government.” From Trappenburg’s essay (2011) [quote]:

The risk-regulation reflex theory

The civil servant had thought it all through carefully. He had read reports on the subject by learned scientists1 and essays by sensible publicists. He had made contact with colleagues abroad. He was a member of a project group, and within that group they had brainstormed and exchanged experiences at length. And so it was. Every so often, something nasty happens.

• A river embankment collapses.
• Somewhere in a nursery, a baby gets trapped between the bars of her cot and suffocates.
• In a care home, four residents fall ill with salmonella poisoning, presumably contracted from eating chicken soup at lunch.
• Dozens of people are infected with Legionella after visiting a flower auction.
• It turns out that a drug-addicted neurologist has been working in a random hospital, making incorrect diagnoses for years.
• A fire breaks out in a café full of young people. Some of them lose their lives. Others will be left with scars for the rest of their lives.
• Gas escapes from a new underground CO₂ storage facility. Fifteen children at a neighbouring primary school have to be treated in hospital for breathing difficulties.
• Or something else entirely.

The incident is covered extensively in the newspapers. It becomes a feature on Netwerk. Hart van Nederland devotes time to it. Angry citizens voice their outrage online. Politicians from opposition parties in parliament or the local council point out that they have always said the river dykes needed to be reinforced, that there should be greater oversight of care homes and nurseries, that fire safety regulations must be enforced much more strictly, that we must be much more vigilant regarding the water management of all potentially publicly accessible institutions, and that we should never have started that underground CO₂ storage in the first place.

The councillors, state secretaries, and ministers responsible are being grilled. A few defend their policies and argue that things do go wrong from time to time (‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’, ‘It is very sad, but there is no such thing as 100 per cent safety’), but most politicians immediately back down. They promise to draw up new rules, carry out stricter checks, and do everything in their power to prevent a repeat of the incident.

We call this the ‘risk-regulation reflex’, says the civil servant. [unquote]

Probleem

BZK (2011): “In recent decades, the government has increasingly been called upon to mitigate all manner of risks for citizens and businesses. Whenever a new risk comes to light or following a serious incident, there is almost invariably a call from society and the political sphere for drastic government measures to eliminate the risk in the future. The government often anticipates such a reaction and thereby unintentionally contributes to the perception that it is indeed society’s primary safety net. However, this expectation often leads to disappointment at the government’s apparent failure.

The term ‘risk-regulation reflex’ has recently been coined to describe this phenomenon. It refers to the automatic tendency towards (over)regulation in response to the identification of a risk, whether or not the identification is triggered by an incident. A related phenomenon is that the responsibility for averting or mitigating risks is often automatically assumed by the government. In many areas, the risk-regulation reflex leads to imbalances in safety policy:

• High costs to society and inefficient use of public funds.
• A low actual safety return (law of diminishing returns).
• Erosion of other values, such as civil liberties.
• Uncertainty regarding responsibilities for safety.
• An obstacle to technological innovation and, consequently, a constraint on economic growth.

Background

This problem is widely recognised both within and outside the government. Partly for this reason, the Minister for the Interior and Kingdom Relations has promised the House of Representatives a vision on the government’s role in managing risks (AO September 2009). This prompted an exploratory project to examine risk management. In 2010, the project organised ‘Risk Day’, a large-scale conference as part of the Civil Service Reform programme, which led to several publications.

To fulfil the earlier commitment, the ‘Risks and Responsibilities’ programme is now being set up. The intended duration is two years.

Objective

In recent years, valuable advice has been provided and methods developed in various quarters to achieve a more transparent approach to managing risks and incidents (see § 2.2 and Appendix 4). Nevertheless, the reflex to regulate risks and the reflex to place responsibility for risks with the government remain prominent. Marjolijn Februari sees a kind of cycle in this: ‘The government points to politics, politics points to the media, the media points to the reader, and the reader points to the government’.

The programme’s central task is to put forward proposals for broadening the scope of action of the (central) government in order to ensure a proportionate and transparent approach to risks and incidents.”

Bibliography

Academie voor Wetgeving (2011) De risico-regelreflex in het openbaar bestuur: Rapport van het symposium, speeches en discussies. Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijkrelaties.

Margo Trappenburg, ‘Waarom het allemaal niet lukt’, in J. van Tol, I. Helsloot en F. Mertens (red.) (2011). Veiligheid boven alles?: Essays over oorzaken en gevolgen van de risico-regelreflex. Boom Lemma Uitgevers. 

Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (2011). Programma Risico’s en Verantwoordelijkheden: Plan van aanpak. Den Haag.