Intermunicipal cooperation in The Netherlands Bert Bouwmeester Mayor

Intermunicipal cooperation in The Netherlands Bert Bouwmeester, Mayor of Coevorden Prague, 28 th november 2013

The Netherlands 12 provinces 408 municipalities

Municipalities develop Populations varies from 1. 200 to 800. 000 Average population: almost 40. 000

Coevorden 1775

Coevorden 2013

Municipality of Coevorden 1 city + 27 villages 300 km 2 ± 36. 000 inhabitants

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Our responsiblities

Cooperation in Coevorden BOCE

Inter-municipal cooperation is one way of organising that municipalities have the required skills and strength to implement the increasing number of tasks.

o Need to improve the quality of the services; or the functioning of the administration; by creating larger units which can attract higher qualified staff, or negotiate better conditions with service providers o Need to jointly address problems that go beyond the borders of individual municipalities, or that have a regional character o sometimes simply the need to make the provision of services, or the functioning of the administration, cheaper. In other words : efficiency reasons.

Alternatives • (Re)centralizing tasks to central government • Creating larger municipalities • Public-Private Partnership • Outsourcing or privatization of a service

WGR • Act on Inter-municipal cooperation o Non-legal cooperation (based on sole agreements), or coordination o Networking: cooperation without creating a new legal entity o Host cooperation o Semi cooperation (some legal powers can be transferred to the cooperation body) o Full cooperation (legal powers can be transferred from the municipalities to a newly created cooperation body) § When a new legal entity is created, this implies that also a new administrative body is created, in which the participating municipalities have their representative(s), or of which they are an institutional member. This new entity then takes over the implementation of the task of the members, while these keep the formal responsibility.