Bicentennial of the Court of Audit and public finances
The Court of Audit its celebrating its bicentennial this year. To mark the occasion, posters and texts have been made to tell our history and that of public finances in words and pictures. Five posters are available on the years 1814, 1864, 1914, 1964 and 2014.
The Court of Audit audits whether the government spends public money and implements policy as intended. Its methods have changed radically over the past 200 years. In the beginning – 1814 to 1841 – the Court worked exclusively for the king. There was no contact whatsoever with parliament. When the Government Accounts Act 1927 came into force, the preventive system was replaced with a repressive system, in which the Court carried out its audits in retrospect. After the Second World War, demand for value for money audits increased and with the introduction of the Government Accounts Act 1976 they became a statutory requirement alongside regularity audits. In the 1960s and 1970s financial management in central government lagged behind developments in the ministries’ policies and a substantial audit backlog built up. Today, the annual audit of the central government´s accounts considers regularity, the quality of policy information and the operational management of each ministry. By carrying out its audits, the Court of Audit strengthens the systematic accounting cycle.
The theme of the five posters is ‘200 years of the Court of Audit and public finances’. Each poster portrays a separate year, 1814, 1864, 1914, 1964 and 2014, presenting information on the core values of our kingdom, the government´s revenue and expenditure, public governance, the Court of Audit´s work and interesting facts.
In addition to the posters, more detailed articles have been written on the years 1814-2014. The Kingdom of the Netherlands has evolved in recent decades into a parliamentary democracy that is a member of the European Union. The relationship between central government and the municipalities has frequently changed during this period, both in the way the municipalities are financed and the tasks they perform and their position in the constitution. The Netherlands has also developed from a ‘night watchman state’ to a welfare state. The notion that poverty was inevitable and the state did not have a duty to look after the poor has made way for a belief that social problems must be tackled. Central government revenue and expenditure have increased enormously in the past 200 years and there has been a fundamental change in their composition.
The inauguration of King Willem I in 1815, industrialisation in 1864, the First World War in 1914, the arrival of The Beatles on Dutch soil in 1964 and the financial crises in 2014 are just a few of the events and developments that the Court of Audit has witnessed in the past 200 years. Both the posters and the texts are available now on the Court of Audit’s website.