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

Objectives

The City of Zeist (60,000 inhabitants) is a medium-sized town with a historical centre in the middle of the Netherlands. Zeist has a modern infrastructure and direct connections to large cities such as Utrecht, Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. Because of its advantageous location, Zeist has a strong service sector.

Dutch cities operate within a multi-level, multi-party democratic system. Since 2006 some noticeable shifts have occurred in the political landscape of Zeist. While the number of social-democratic (PvdA) representatives declined over two consecutive elections, the influence of two parties grew: the social liberals (D66) and a local party. Other bigger parties, such as the liberals (VVD) and Christian-democrats (CDA) remained at the same levels. This case study focuses on the period between 2010 and 2015. During this period, a four-party board of executives administered the city: social-liberals (D66), liberals (VVD), social-democrats (PvdA) and the green party (GroenLinks). Each party also provided one alderman, a position which is not an elected member of the council (the Dutch ‘dualistic approach’). The board of executives comprised two-thirds of the local council.  

Like the UK, the Netherlands has a centralised fiscal regime. Although roughly a third of the budget is collected by municipalities, only eight per cent of a municipality’s budget is available for discretionary services. In the Netherlands, municipalities are heavily dependent on transfers from higher levels of government, which form two-thirds of the budget. Moreover, local government has limited options for expanding the local revenue base. Other locally collected revenue comes from charges for waste collection and sewer maintenance.

In 2010 Zeist, as everywhere in the Netherlands, faced a period of fiscal austerity. Although there were many uncertainties, the estimate was that over 10 % of the discretionary budget would have to be reformed in order to restore the balance between income and expenditure. This meant a challenge to reduce the budgetary deficit by €6.2m.. The 2010 coalition programme included a commitment to involve citizens in finding new solutions to this budgetary challenge.

“It [citizen participation] is about connectedness, participatory democracy and a different relationship between state and society. Current challenges are too difficult to be solved by governments alone.” 

(Coalition programme ‘Uitwerking Dichterbij’ 2010:12)

Originally, the idea was to ‘consult citizens on different scenarios developed by public officers’. However, it quickly became apparent that this route was not in line with the organisational values of the City of Zeist.

“Our organisational values state that we are not the ones who know best, that we want to listen to society, facilitate dialogue, connect and take risks. […] In order to do that as an organisation and as public officers, three key values are essential: strength, trust, and proximity.”

(Strategic plan ‘Op weg naar verder’ 2010:10)

The board of aldermen decided to launch an intensive process of citizen engagement. Other local stakeholders bought into this idea as well, for three reasons:

1. The idea of a traditional budget consultation where citizens would be consulted on government-made austerity scenarios was inconsistent with the coalition programme, which included a commitment to citizen engagement.
2. Within the organisation there was concern as to whether the austerity scenarios would find support in local communities.
3. Finally, a couple of public officers had visited Brussels and learnt about the EU decision making process where diverse interests are brought together at an early stage of the decision-making process.