Two letters sent to the House of Representatives for debate of OCW budget
The Court of Audit will forward a series of letters on the government's 2014 budget to the House of Representatives in the coming weeks.
Comments on the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science's 2014 budget
The House received the letter on the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture's budget on 16 October 2013. The letter draws attention to the following and other points:
- The link between the minister's policy goals and the funds available to achieve them
- The relationship between the Coalition Agreement, the budget, the National Education Agreement and the Budget Agreement: the information in the Ministry of OCW's budget allows different interpretations of the spending cuts and spending increases announced in the Coalition Agreement. The memorandum of budget amendments and the supplementary budgets (for 2013 and 2014) must explain how the final draft budget for 2014 should be interpreted. To render meaningful accounts for 2014, the Court of Audit believes specific and measurable goals should be attached to the additional funding provided for parts of the OCW budget.
Preliminary report on the funding of secondary education
At the request of the State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science, the Court of Audit is auditing the funding of secondary education. To facilitate the debate of the ministry's budget, the House of Representatives received a preliminary report today.
The report outlines the financial situation of the education, the Ministry of OCW's funding of secondary education and the opportunities schools have (on paper) to manage their funding.
In the final report, which will be published in the first half of 2014, the Court of Audit will consider whether schools can and actually do make use of those opportunities.
The letters are only available in Dutch.