The Netherlands Court of Audit presents Look at the Netherlands: Goals and Results. It is a dashboard of indicators that together show the government’s progress towards a number of important goals. The dashboard, in Dutch, can be found from today at blikopnederland.rekenamer.nl.
The Court of Audit recognises the importance of clear goals and assessments of progress and results, especially over the longer term. The government has to be clear in advance what it wants to achieve with public money, and it must be clear whether the government has achieved its goals. To show that this can be done in practice, the Court is today presenting Look at the Netherlands: Goals and Results.
The Look at the Netherlands: Goals and Results dashboard.
The dashboard shows how successful the government is at achieving the goals it set for a number of themes, such as the economy, housing, care, safety and livelihood security. Indicators have been compiled for each theme, with figures showing the current state of play. Targets have also been set for most indicators. Are they being achieved or are further away than ever before?
Aims and intentions
The Court of Auditors selected the main themes and indicators to align itself as closely as possible with the planning agencies and institutions such as the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis , Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Statistics Netherlands, Netherlands Institute for Social Research and National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. The indicators and targets are based on applicable laws, treaties and multiannual government policies. Some targets set in the coalition agreement are also included in the dashboard. Sometimes there is a clear intention rather than a goal. The gender pay gap, for example, is not defined, but everyone will agree that narrowing it is good news.
The figures in the dashboard are sourced from various agencies and institutions. The Court’s President, Pieter Duisenberg, is impressed with their work: “All these organisations do great research work. It’s thanks to their good work that we can present this dashboard. Together with our own analyses of laws, treaties and letters to parliament, we had all the pieces we needed to complete the puzzle.”
Helicopter view
Mr Duisenberg said: "The government must do what it promises, and provide an insight into what it does. You would expect the government to have a dashboard of its own, but it doesn’t, which is why we are now doing it ourselves. The dashboard allows the government, parliament and everyone in the Netherlands to follow developments and targets, whether the targets were set in a coalition agreement or not. It’s a helicopter view of where things are going right in the country and where we need to go.” This information is needed throughout The Hague, he thinks: “You can only reach your destination if you know where you are and where you want to go. It is also useful for us: it supports our audit work by showing where results are being achieved and where policy bottlenecks are imminent.”