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

Like many other municipalities in Europe the City of Zeist in the Netherlands was faced with the challenge of achieving budget savings. Based on the belief that citizens have expertise, experience and skills to find new solutions, the City of Zeist launched a citizen engagement process to close a fiscal gap of €6m. During a period of three months, two hundred ‘citizen experts’ discussed new solutions related to eight topics, based on their personal expertise. As a result of this targeted co-commissioning process, ninety-five per cent of all citizen proposals were adopted by the local council without changes.

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.

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.

The austerity dialogue in Zeist had two key results:

• Nine months after the start of the process, the local council agreed over two hundred proposals.  Apart from a dozen, these proposals were adopted without changes. The net worth of the decided proposals was enough to restore the balance between income and expenditure in the structural reform of the budget.
• In Zeist the austerity dialogue is regarded as a good example demonstrating the value of society in solving local problems. Local politicians feel strengthened in their belief that it is right to involve citizens in solving the most important challenges. New networks originated from the process and there is a now a better relationship between local communities and the municipality.

The participation process was completed within a period of three months. Around 80% of the ‘citizen experts’ remained involved throughout the process. This process resulted in an overall White Paper, including 217 proposals from eight expert committees. There was large variation in the proposed measures. Some focussed on making savings by increasing the entrance fees for the local swimming pool, or reducing the grants to cultural and welfare organisations. Others, however, were more complex and aimed at transforming the relations between society and government, such as a sweeping reform of the funding of sports organisations.

The proposals added up to €7.6m. While the challenge was only €6.2m, the committees enabled the council to make additional reforms. In the final decision making process, ninety-five per cent of all proposals were adopted by the local council. During the final discussions and decisions of the local council, only fifteen councillors objected to the proposed measures.

The co-design process has resulted in a structural budget reform of €6.2m. In the first fiscal year after the participation process the budget reform resulted in savings over €1m. The savings target was able to be achieved four years after the start of the participation process.

The direct costs of the participation process were €50,000. These costs included costs for facilitating the expert meetings organised at several locations in Zeist, costs of communication and external consultants (to replace the Chefs de Dossier if necessary). The ‘citizen experts’ were not paid any fees. The costs of the austerity dialogue consisted of less than 2 per cent of the reform process.

The staff time of the 16 officers involved in the dialogue were funded through the mainstream budget.

In retrospect, three main difficulties can be highlighted.

1. Zeist found some difficulties in involving young people. Believing that they also had an important role if the choices made were to be sustainable, extra effort was put into attracting adolescents and students as well. For instance, a contest was launched to capture their best ideas.
2. Many experts argued that the process took place under serious time pressure. Some results of the expert committees might have been better if more time had been available for reflection. On the other hand, the time pressure may well have been necessary to keep thing moving.
3. Some experts have suggested that the open and sincere attitude of local councillors came under pressure at the final stage, when they had to make hard decisions within the context of political competition. Furthermore, some ‘citizen experts’ were a bit put off by how their ‘citizen expert’ proposals were translated in generic policy documents, as well as by the political jargon being used. However, apart from a dozen proposals, the solutions of the expert committees were adopted without any adjustments. The rejected proposals did not meet the initial framework (e.g. “we should not cut back on social benefits”) or had an uncertain fiscal contribution.

Looking at the success factors, two aspects should be emphasized. First, without the sincere belief of the local politicians in the strength, expertise and creativity of the citizens in solving local problems, this process would have been doomed to fail. As the mayor said:

“The strength of society lies within people. By giving them confidence
and allowing them to get close to us, this strength grows to ultimate levels.”

 (Koos Janssen, Mayor of Zeist)

The intrinsic motivation of politicians to leave the challenge to society and of public officials to listen to the people in the street was crucial. The extent of this far-reaching paradigm shift was clearly articulated by one of the participating public officials in the journey:

“And what if I don’t trust the people in the street? Then it’s time to look out for a new job.”

(Municipal staff member)

A second success factor was the flexibility of the approach. Apart from a set of guidelines from the council (containing limitations and criteria), there was no blueprint for realizing the goals of rebalancing and participating. There was no template describing how to roll out the ideas. As the city managers argued:

“The world is far too complex to change it using a blueprint. Besides that, we want to use and develop talent. “

(Ineke Lissenberg, City Manager of Zeist)

The key resource was a couple of intrinsically motivated officers, who truly believed in the challenge and who were appointed to manage the process. Every decision they made was associated with underlying belief in the dialogue (WHY) and its principles (HOW). The process was managed incrementally and adjusted gradually, using only the proceedings of the dialogue. A special committee which was appointed to be responsible for unforeseen issues did not come together once during the journey.

1. The success of the austerity dialogue in Zeist shows that citizen participation has added value. Although citizen participation is time-consuming for citizens, and therefore has to be used selectively, citizen participation has become ‘a way of life’ in Zeist.
2. Where we believe in the strength, expertise and creativity of citizens, co-design is a good way to develop better policy alternatives, instead of focussing on cuts. However, it is important to limit the influence of citizens to areas in which they can use their own expertise, experience and interest.
3. Where we believe in the strength, expertise and creativity of citizens, dialogue is a good instrument to enlarge the support for policy alternatives in local communities.