Anke Ruige Benno Wiendels

1. Benchmarking local employment policies and (re)integration in the Netherlands Anke Ruige Benno Wiendels

2. Content • Introduction on the employment policies system in the Netherlands • Benchmarking in the Netherlands • Benchmarksystem Municipal Social Services

3. Employment policies in the Netherlands • Decentralisation (483 municipalities) • Two tasks in this field: - benefits - reintegration • Financial responsibilities

4. Why to start benchmarking in this field? • Criticism on the implementation • Change in the way of financing • Benchmark: comparing organisations by means of performance indicators in order to enhance actual practice - effectiveness - efficiency - customer satisfaction (quality)

5. Benchmarksystem Municipal Social Services • Voluntary basis • Not free of obligation • Circle meetings • Final report • Publication

6. Support from national government Two reasons: • - increasing maturity of citizens (improvement of quality) • - gap between citizens and government (democracy)

7. Benchmarksystem Municipal Social Services

8. Goals • Comparison of own performance with other municipal social services by means of: - taking the average of the achievements of the participating municipal social services - giving best practices (not having to discover everything themself, getting an external view of reality) • Analyzing of explaining input factors and acquiring of ideas: How and why realizes a participating municipal social service such a achievement? • Monitoring performance municipal social services at a national level local level

9. Dimensions in the system of benchmark Objective features of the environment Personnel and organization

10. In- decrease number of unemployed 2002 Best practice

11. Circles of benchmark • All participants are organised in comparison-circles: groupsof 6 à 8 comparable municipalities (size, number of clients, region) • Emphasis lies on the world behind the figures • Agreement about the way questions has to be answered • Target group: managers and information experts • 4 meetings per year

12. 93 94 77 75 47 57 44 24 History • Start 1-1-2000 (pilot 47 municipalities) • With a product-approach (with some control aspects as well from the ministry of social affairs). • many indicators calculated from 350 questions. • With lots of calculations (weighted performance indicators), very impressive.

13. Results • The local authorities were impressed • The winners (best practices) were giving press conferences, stating their success was due to optimal management. • The loosers (worst practices) were giving press conferences stating: 1. This the benchmark is not fully accurate (especialy with regard to their own results). 2. Despite their poor results on A, they were very good at B. • Focus on quantity rather then quality • What did the local authorities learn?

14. A new system • With considerably less questions (25): a few indicators can act as a managable agent for improvement. • Indicators based on actual local Social Service practice, existing documents and statistics. • Cost (€ 3500 - €5500) fully conducted by the municipalities • With a solid core (trend analysis possible) and flexible appendices (the external world is changing rapidly). • Additional development of an integral quality system, based on EFQM principles (not only the ‘hard’ persformance indicators but also client and workers satisfaction).

15. Balanced scorecard Finance Client Internal organization Providing benefits

16. What is in it for the individual municipality • Up to date information (every three months) • Collection of data and report generation through the internet (www.wwbbenchmark.nl) • Insight in the best practice and in the average achievements: - All participants are asked to name at least 3 subjects regarding the results they want to talk about. - Regarding to the most popular subjects, the best practices are asked to deliver lectures on their organisations. - Regarding the more complex subjects, small ad-hoc committees of experts are gathered together to dicuss performance and possible improvements. • Management report per municipality • Individualsupport per municipality

17. Compared to the initial start a significant step forwards. • We are now on the right track with process-management: the discussions in the comparison-circles have added validity to the report. • Concrete steps have been taken to change practice • Improvements in terms of validity and reliability (important for the acceptance and actual use) of the system as we go along. • Improvement in data- and informationsystems

18. Nevertheless • Some local authorities are too busy with their daily hassles (benchmark means more work than judged at the start). • Some municipalities still can’t get their numbers right or don’t have them at all (reliability of the system is still weak in some parts). • Benchmark is not always integrated within municipal planning/quality-project • For important issues it is very hard to find the right performance indicators (differences between municipalities and performance is influencent by other organizations).

19. Conclusions • Choose, where possible indicators from existing documents or statistics. • Don’t get caught in too many indicators. • Accomodate for validity by developing the benchmarkmodel as well as the story behind the numbers. • Benchmarking is not an instrument to monitor the performances of municipal social services at a national level (learning instrument) • Benchmarking demands an open atmosphere and trust (sharing of good practices) • Involvementfrom management • Hast to fit within municipal planning/quality-process

20. Questions?