Measurements for municipalities 2007

Original title: Maten voor gemeenten 2007.

Measurements for municipalities 2007 presents a national picture of the performance delivered by local authorities and the costs of doing so. The analyses relate to the period 2000-2005. This is the fifth time this quantitative and integrated picture has been presented of municipalities as producers of services.
The report shows that total local authority spending in the period studied increased after adjustment for inflation by an average of 0.4% per annum. The growth was held back by a downturn in 2004 and, to a lesser extent, 2005, partly due to spending cuts and partly to the outsourcing of tasks through privatisation and the granting of autonomous status to a number of municipal services (education and public transport). After the peak year 2002, there was a delayed reaction from local authorities to the downturn in the market sector which set in as early as 2001.
During the same period there was a fall in output averaging 0.3% per annum. As a result, the trend in the performance of municipalities trailed the real increase in expenditure by 0.8% per annum.
Local authority budgets for 2006 and 2007 also give no hint of a recovery in growth. Although other sectors have also felt in the impact of the economic downturn, in the longer term, spending and output by the private sector and on public services in fields such as education, care and safety rise more rapidly than those of municipal services.