The austerity dialogue in Zeist: How the Municipality of Zeist harnesses the ideas of ‘citizen-experts’

Change management

The co-design process was based on the following principles:

1. Citizens have the expertise, creativity and strength to find solutions to the current challenges.
2. The owner of a problem is also the owner of the solution.
3. Bring together all key stakeholders - do not exclude anyone.
4. First try to understand, then to be understood.

Finally, three key stakeholders were involved in the process:

• Citizen Experts: Using an open call (both online and in the local press) everyone who felt engaged with the municipality and wished to respond to its austerity challenge was invited to participate in the so-called ‘austerity dialogue’. About two hundred ‘citizen experts’ were involved in the process. The citizens who wished to participate were divided into eight committees based on their specific expertise, experience and interest. For example, both the street-level social worker and the jobless single-mom participated as experts in the Social Care and Welfare Committee. As a result, each committee consisted of ‘experts by experience’ rather than every citizen discussing all kinds of issues outside of their expertise.
• Politicians: Although the local councillors were not involved in the discussions held by the ‘citizen experts’, they had an important role at both initial and final stages of the process. In the initial stage, the council set out a clear framework and the policy issues to be discussed and the financial savings to be achieved by each committee. At the end of the process, the council had the final say as to whether to adopt or reject proposals and had to give feedback on the decisions taken. Although the aldermen mostly had an ambassadorial role during the process, they also had a role in approving the strategic plans of each committee (the ‘green papers’).
• Public officers: Two officers per expert committee had the responsibility of facilitating the dialogue and of keeping the debate moving - a so-called chef de dossier and an assistant. The public officers were chosen on the basis of their enthusiasm and competencies, and not on the basis of their professional track records or expertise. Their role was explicitly limited to facilitating the process, while the contribution of ideas was reserved to the ‘citizen experts’.

Within a period of three months, two hundred experts discussed eight topics in eight expert committees. The topics were not related to outcomes, but rather to issues in the budget plan. Furthermore, each committee was given a specific budgetary challenge in terms of the savings to be achieved.

Table 1: Themes of the eight expert committees and budgetary challenges

The process started with a plenary meeting in which the participation process was outlined. Afterwards, each committee met six times: Three meetings took place in the phase of preparing the ‘green paper’ and three meetings during the phase of preparing the ‘white paper’. All meetings were organised in the evenings and facilitated by the two designated public officers.

During the green paper phase the committee members defined a vision related to the topic, including a definition of the relationship between state and society. For example, the green paper of the Sports and Leisure Committee specified challenges such as ageing, obesity and austerity but also a shared vision, shared policy goals and a shared perspective on the desired collaboration between government and society on these issues.

The board of aldermen discussed all the green papers. When each green paper was approved, another three expert meetings were arranged during the ‘white paper’ phase. In line with the strategic goals formulated in the green paper, the ‘citizen experts’ were challenged to answer three questions:

1. To make specific proposals for better performance and sustainable relations between society and government;
2. To make specific proposals within the budgetary limitation defined for the specific service;
3. To develop these proposals with a wide range of experts in the committee in order to improve the proposals.

Furthermore, each committee was free to frame the debate. For example, the Education Committee added questions to frame the discussion in a rather positive way such as “How can we improve the quality of our education? What has to be reformed, what are the alternatives? Who has to do what?” Of course, the proposed solutions had to respect the predefined budget targets.

Below are two examples of proposals coming from the ‘citizen experts’:

The bus to Austerlitz

Austerlitz (1525 inhabitants) is one of the five communities within the municipal of Zeist. At the time of the austerity dialogue about eight Austerlitzers travelled on Sunday via public transport, a service which was subsidised by the city of Zeist to the tune of €40,000 per year.

The ‘citizen experts’ came to the conclusion that there were no grounds to continue this subsidy as the cost-benefit ratio was not good enough. This triggered a new citizen initiative, known as “Austerlitz Care https://www.austerlitzzorgt.nl”. This includes a transport scheme, provided by citizens for citizens, to ensure that Austerlitzers who are in need of transport are provided with transport by other Austerlitzers.

Green garbage

The ‘citizen experts’ identified that the containers for “green garbage” were typically only half full.  This even applied in the summer period, when the garbage containers were emptied weekly by the municipality, as compared to every two weeks in winter. Therefore, the Committee proposed that the containers should be emptied only every two weeks during the summer. The local council adopted this, resulting in a cost reduction of €73,000 per year.

Finally, each expert committee drafted a white paper, which consisted of proposed actions which were in line with the strategic direction of the green paper, and the budgetary framework set at the beginning of the process. The proposals of the eight expert committees were integrated into an overall white paper to be discussed by executive board and local council.