Talking to the People: Perceptions of Cohesion Policy Accountability in the Netherlands

Accountability is an important aspect of public policy. With the long standing high error rates of cohesion policy and taking its multilevel character into account, it is interesting to look at the accountability situation of this policy area. To what extent is there a situation of ‘good accountability’? This paper deals with the case study of ERDF in the Netherlands and describes how different actors in this policy area look at the accountability situation. A theoretical framework that has been developed by the author regarding what good accountability should look like, has lead to four necessary basic conditions: (1) existence of accountability relationships on all levels, (2) elements of transparency, democracy and legal constraint should be visible, (3) presence of all elements of the policy process chain (economy, efficiency and effectiveness), and (4) a balanced situation without accountability deficit or accountability overload. Actors from European, national and regional levels are asked for their opinions and views on the accountability situation of different relationships within the system: how do they see these relationships and to what extent do they consider there to be a situation of good accountability? The paper will give an overview of opinions of different actors, related to the different relationships within the system and will show that, according to the respondents, the criteria of good accountability are not all met. The paper will address some specific problems, such as the existence of non-explicit accountability relationships (informal and partial accountability relationships), a focus on compliance instead of other elements of the policy process chain, and some elements of accountability overload. Finally, the paper will show that the respondents are critical of accountability of ERDF in the Netherlands.