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Measurements for municipalities 2008

Original title: Maten voor gemeenten 2008.

Measurements for municipalities presents a national picture of the performance delivered by local authorities and the costs of doing so. The analyses relate to the period 2001-2006. This is the sixth time this quantitative and integrated picture has been presented of municipalities as producers of services.
The report shows that after adjustment for inflation, total spending by local authorities fell by an average of 0.5% per annum in the period studied. Spending was still rising in 2002 and 2003, after which it began to fall. This was partly the result of spending cuts and partly due 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, which saw strong growth in both spending and staff numbers, this suggests a delayed reaction by local authorities in the subsequent years to the economic downturn in the private sector which began in 2001.
In the same period, municipal output fell by an average of 1.2% per annum, so that the trend in municipal output lagged behind the real increase in spending by 0.7% per annum. This was because prices of public services rose more quickly than prices in the private sector. For municipalities, this can be explained partly by a fall in labour productivity and pay trends that are in line with the market.

Local authority budgets for 2007 and in particular for 2008 suggest a return to growth. Over the longer term, there is no escaping the observation that spending and output by the private sector and by public services in fields such as education, care and safety are rising more quickly than spending and output in municipal services.

This edition of Measurements for municipalities also focuses on two special topics, namely key figures in relation to the recent introduction of the Social Support Act (Wmo) and neighbourhood development, gentrification and participation. As regards the Social Support Act, the study looks at a number of factors that influence the price and volume of domestic help provision. Gentrification is a specific form of neighbourhood enhancement which entails major investments by private citizens in their own homes.