This year, the draft departmental budgets comprise €516.8 billion in expenditure and €481.2 billion in revenue. Each year, the Netherlands Court of Audit examines whether government measures can be traced by parliament in the budgets, whether ministers set clear and measurable goals that parliament can monitor, and whether parliament is properly informed about risks and uncertainties.
“A good budget provides the basis for a well-considered path from goals and plans to results. However, for much of the money, it is still insufficiently clear what the government intends to achieve with it. And the question is whether risks such as the feasibility of investments and expenditure-saving measures, the condition of infrastructure, declining educational outcomes, labour market shortages and insufficient simplification in already strained implementation are being faced squarely and addressed,” President Duisenberg writes in the overarching letter to parliament.
Money largely traceable
Based on its analysis of 16 draft budgets, the Netherlands Court of Audit concludes that government plans are, for the most part, traceable in the budgets. However, there are also measures by, for example, the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, for which this is not the case. The overarching letter discusses these in more detail.
Only a few ministers set measurable main goals
Concrete and measurable main goals have been included in the budget (Van der Lee et al. motion) only to a limited extent. The Minister of Finance had committed to the government addressing this in the Budget Memorandum, but only the budgets of the Ministers of Economic Affairs, Climate Policy and Green Growth, Finance, Infrastructure and Water Management, and Housing and Spatial Planning contain concrete and measurable goals. These are absent from the other budgets.
Many risks to achieving results remain unclear
Some risks are reflected in the budgets of the Ministers of Health, Welfare and Sport (expected increase in staff shortages in healthcare), Housing and Spatial Planning (grid congestion, the nitrogen issue and insufficient civil service capacity) and Infrastructure and Water Management (the funding available for infrastructure maintenance falls short of what is needed, and the capacity of Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail and the market is limited).
However, other significant risks are absent from the budgets, for example the risk of inefficient spending and underspending due to the rapid increase in the budgets for Defence (growth towards 3.5% of GDP) and Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (a doubling of commitments compared with 2026), EU contributions that could be approximately €3.7 billion higher per year from 2028 (Foreign Affairs), and the risk that the objectives of the Water Framework Directive will not be met (Infrastructure and Water Management). In its letters accompanying the departmental budgets, the Netherlands Court of Audit mentions further risks that receive little or no attention in the draft budgets. We also draw attention to the risks included in our high-risk list.
No clear choices on how to implement spending cuts in central government administration
Another risk concerns the planned spending cuts in central government administration. The total planned reduction compared with 2024 now amounts to around €3.4 billion, while expenditure has only increased in recent years.
Spending cuts in central government administration since the Schoof government rise to €3.4 billion
Amounts in € billion
It is now clear that this spending cut will affect not only policy and staff directorates but also implementing organisations, and may therefore have consequences for the level of public services. This requires clear choices and direction from the government, which are lacking in the current budget documents. This is despite the House of Representatives’ request for these consequences to be made clear (Van der Maas et al. motion). Also relevant in this context is the factsheet on implementation assessments published by the Netherlands Court of Audit last week. It shows that staffing consequences are often omitted from feasibility assessments for new policy (when such assessments are carried out at all).
Large proportion of ineffective tax schemes remains in place
A large proportion of the current tax schemes have never been evaluated, making it unclear whether they work effectively. The 53 schemes that have in fact been evaluated were found to be neither efficient nor effective. Civil service advice indicates that removing or amending these schemes could save the government as much as €35 billion. The measures taken by the government to date result in savings of approximately €1 billion.
Taskforces launched
The government is in the process of setting up cross-departmental taskforces for six major social challenges (accelerating housing construction; agriculture, nature and nitrogen; future prosperity and the business climate; Decisive Government; asylum and migration; and crime that undermines society). It is positive that some of the taskforces set measurable goals. However, for several taskforces, only planned activities have been described (often activities that are already part of existing policy), and no goals have been set. It is still unclear how the results of the taskforces will be monitored, and there is as yet no link between the goals and the funding available. The Netherlands Court of Audit suggests that parliament consider exercising its scrutiny role across parliamentary committees, in line with the cross-departmental social challenges.
Supporting the House of Representatives in scrutinising budgets
In recent years, it has become common practice in the House of Representatives for committee budget rapporteurs to contribute to the scrutiny of the budgets. This has improved the way in which the House of Representatives exercises its scrutiny and legislative roles. The Netherlands Court of Audit is more than willing to support parliament in this.