Results-Based Agreements for the Police in the Netherlands

• NCJ Number: 224944
• Journal: Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management Volume: 31 Issue: 3 Dated: 2008 Pages: 415-434
• Author(s): Arie van Sluis; Lex Cachet; Arthur Ringeling
• Date Published: 2008
• Length: 20 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

Findings are presented from a research study on the impact of a new performance system, results-based agreements, for police in the Netherlands.

Abstract

In the Dutch context, the results-based agreements mark a shift in policing and in the steering and control of the police. After a few years of controversy, the results-based agreements are now accepted as a matter of fact. Many of the expected negative effects have not occurred. Instead, positive consequences have been seen. In the stakeholders’ perceptions, internal effects (in the police organization and in police work), are more significant than effects in their own relations with the police. On the whole, the police do not get isolated as a consequence of the results-based agreements and they do not disassociate themselves from the societal networks they participated in before. In 2003, a system of results-based agreements between the national government and the police in the Netherlands was introduced. The results-based agreements are the result of increasing centralization in steering and control of the police and of failing traditional policy planning. The Dutch Police National Framework 2003-2006 contained policy targets for the police for the period 2003-2006. It was based on a national results-based agreement between the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the 25 police force administrators. The policy targets were set out in a national covenant and in regional covenants with the individual forces. The sum total of the agreements in the individual covenants constituted the national agreement. The collective results and the results of individual forces were monitored and recorded at the national level. This paper begins by analyzing the development of the Dutch police system in recent years and elaborates on the context of the background of the emergence of police performance measurements in the Netherlands. This is followed by a description of the results-based agreements system, a debate about the effects of the new measurement system, and a presentation of the findings and conclusions. Notes, references