Social and Cultural Report 2002.

The quality of education, care, the police and judicial apparatus and other public services have been constantly recurring topics of debate in recent years. Frequently heard complaints relate to waiting lists for medical care, teacher shortages leading to lessons being cancelled and what many see as the ineffective fight against crime. Not surprisingly, therefore, these issues played a major role in the campaigns by the various parties during the last general election. The Social and Cultural Report 2002 (Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport 2002) compiles an inventory of the complaints and seeks to establish using empirical material how bad - and sometimes how good - the various forms of public service are, both in an objective sense and in the perception of the citizen. To reflect this, the subtitle of the report is 'The quality of the public sector'.

The Social and Cultural Report is published every two years, and each edition focuses on a different core theme. Each edition offers a broad overview of the major policy systems in the Netherlands, divided into chapters on care, employment, social security, housing, education, culture and justice.