You are at: Home / Publications / Summaries by year / Summaries 2010 / Measurements for municipalities 2010

Measurements for municipalities 2010

Original title: Maten voor gemeenten 2010

This 2010 edition of Measurements for municipalities presents an impression of the performance delivered by Dutch local authorities and of the associated costs. The analyses in the report relate to the period 2003-2008. This is the eighth year in succession that q 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 0.2% per annum in the period studied. Over the same period, municipal output fell by an average of 0.8% per annum, so that the trend in output lagged behind the real increase in spending by 0.6% 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 combined with pay trends that are in line with the market.

This edition of Measures for municipalities also focuses on a special topic, namely the profit derived by a number of different categories of household from local authority spending. The overall picture as regards the distribution of profit from local government spending is dominated by the profit accruing to social assistance benefit claimants: the amount involved is large while the group to which it accrues is small. This implies that the profit increases as the standardised household income or education level falls.