Newsletter Netherlands Court of Audit

he quality of work is of great importance to Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), as it affects their reputation and credibility, and ultimately their ability to fulfil their mandate. Ensuring the quality of their work can be a major challenge for SAIs. In this online course, developed by the Netherlands Court of Audit, you will learn more about the international principles and standards for SAIs concerning quality management of audit work and learn about possibilities to put them into practice.

Netherlands Court of Audit publishes online course on Quality Management for SAIs

A report has the same function as a painting or novel
Arno Visser stood down as President of the Netherlands Court of Audit during an extraordinary meeting of the Court’s Board on 15 December 2022.  For the occasion, the Board did not meet in its offices on Lange Voorhout, but in the New Babylon conference centre in the presence of staff and former Board members. Mr Visser will formally leave the Court on 31 December.

A report has the same function as a painting or novel

Timen Sijens (Groningen University) has won the Netherlands Court of Audit’s very first Thesis Prize for his thesis on the quality of higher education. The thesis stood out for its exposé of the tension between the return on investment in education on the one hand and the quality of education on the other.

Netherlands Court of Audit presents inaugural Thesis Prize to historian Timen Sijens

The Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Real Estate Plan (SVP) is intended to put an end to long-lasting problems regarding the management and maintenance of Dutch barracks, training areas, offices, ammunition storage sites and air bases. The SVP provides for the transfer of ownership of all the ministry’s real estate to the Central Government Real Estate Agency (RVB). However, the government has not explained how this alternative will improve real estate management and maintenance. The RVB currently provides management services for the ministry’s real estate but it has been unable to maintain the real estate to a satisfactory standard in recent years, partly because of lack of capacity. Furthermore, there is no integrated plan on what real estate should be retained and what should be disposed.

Defence real estate plan poorly explained

Inconsistent amounts and definitions
How much money does the government spend on climate policy? The ministers concerned do not provide parliament with clear and comprehensive information. Furthermore, there is no clear definition of ‘climate policy’ and the amounts reportedly spent on climate measures are inconsistent.

Parliament has incomplete picture of climate expenditure

Reception capacity for asylum seekers in a multiyear perspective
In 2022 the Dutch government budgeted just over €500 million for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). In the course of the year, however, it became clear that the COA would need an additional billion euros because the number of asylum seekers and the costs incurred for them were far higher than foreseen. This is not the first time the Netherlands has had problems with the reception of asylum seekers. The COA’s costs have been higher than budgeted in 21 of 23 years investigated by the Netherlands Court of Audit. Why is this? An investigation by the Court places the current reception problems in a multiyear perspective.

Budget for asylum reception structurally too low

The information on the Court of Audit’s EU webpages has been updated. It can now be seen that on balance the Netherlands paid €6.9 billion to the European Union in 2021.

Fractional increase in Netherlands’ contribution to the EU

The National Energy Retrofit Fund (ERF) is a scheme to make homes sustainable. By the end of 2021, the fund (initially called the National Energy Saving Fund) had lent nearly €650 million to home owners to retrofit, for instance, solar boilers and heat pumps. An audit by the Netherlands Court of Audit, however, concludes that the ERF contributes less to sustainable homes than grant schemes that have a comparable goal. Furthermore, the cost of the ERF is not disclosed in the budget approved by parliament.

Hidden costs of the National Energy Retrofit Fund

Payment regulations at implementing organisations  | 23 March 2023
DigiD & eRecognition and digital identities | 30 March 2023
The role of central government in child protection  | 13 April 2023

Current audits