Headlines from ten years of audit reports

City of Rotterdam | 2019

The Audit Office has investigated the substantive similarities (‘common themes’) found in the conclusions of 42 reports it published on the municipality of Rotterdam between 2009 and 2019.

Administrative overconfidence and excessive regulation

The council is repeatedly overconfident in its plans and consequently takes on too many (financial) risks. Furthermore, the council often relies too heavily on rules and procedures, paying too little attention to practical implementation issues and residents’ everyday lives. These and other conclusions are set out in the Audit Office’s report ‘Public value under pressure’, a summary of dozens of investigations carried out by the Rotterdam Audit Office in the municipality of Rotterdam since 2009.

Financial risks often underestimated

The City of Rotterdam often has ambitious plans, such as the Warmtebedrijf, Feyenoordcity, and the Schiekadeblok. Courage and decisiveness are often seen as one of Rotterdam’s strengths. Unfortunately, over the past ten years, the City has frequently underestimated the (financial) risks and problems involved in its plans. Furthermore, it is often the case that the municipality learns too little from things that have gone wrong. Problems in internal cooperation and with other organisations also mean that plans are often not realised.

Too little attention paid to implementers and citizens

Furthermore, over the past ten years, the council has often governed in a rather one-sided manner, relying too heavily on rules and protocols. It did not take sufficient account of the everyday realities faced by practitioners and citizens. For instance, the social neighbourhood teams were found to be overly burdened by internal rules and procedures, and the council’s internal integrity policy was found to be too narrowly focused on rules, with insufficient practical attention paid to the internal culture and behaviour of staff.

Cultural change needed

The Audit Office believes that the council should scrutinise major plans more critically internally at an early stage and learn more from past experience. The Audit Office also believes that the council should take signals from its own officials, frontline professionals, citizens, civil society organisations and researchers more seriously. According to the Audit Office, a cultural change within the council’s organisation is needed to allow for more dissent. The Audit Office does, however, see a shift in civil service leadership during the current council term, indicating that serious thought is being given to improving risk management. The Audit Office considers it important that these improvements are tackled seriously and given high priority.

Download Memorandum (Dutch)

See also Meta-analysis (Dutch) by Paul Hofstra and Kees de Waijer | 2019)

This article describes the findings of a meta-analysis of dozens of studies conducted by the Rotterdam Court of Audit since 2009. It offers an honest insight into public administration, its components, roles, relationships, and processes.

These are persistent policy problems that recur in the administration of the municipality of Rotterdam. They cover four themes: problems in policy design, implementation issues, internal cooperation and management, and cooperation with other parties.

…”On more than one occasion, ambitions proved to be unrealistic and risks were insufficiently recognised. In policy management, there was often too little attention paid to ‘soft controls’. Policy was frequently found to be compartmentalised into sub-processes, waarin het te bereiken maatschappelijk doel ondergesneeuwd raakte. De rekenkamer pleit voor meer bestuurlijke bezinning vooraf en voor een ander sturingsmodel, dat meer aansluit bij de leefwereld van uitvoerder en burgers.”

Bibliografie

Hofstra, P., & De Waijer, K. (2019). Publieke waarde in de knel: Samenvatting meta-analyse tien jaar rekenkameronderzoek. In J.P. Kruf & E.J. Frank. Publiek Risico: Essays, Stichting Civitas Naturalis, 2020, pp. 607-611.

Rekenkamer Rotterdam (2019). Publieke waarde in de knel. Gemeente Rotterdam.