Amsterdam, Netherlands - SEO Economisch Onderzoek

The Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science (OCW) coordinates higher education policy.Over the past 20 years, the policy objective of the central government has been to decrease itssteering and regulatory role and to increase institutional autonomy. The Ministry of OCW retainscontrol over the public budget for new educational programs by means of the macro efficiencytest and of course determines the rules for the allocation of the public budget for higher educationin general. But the overall policy is that educational institutions at all levels enjoy a great degreeof autonomy. Following this, the Ministry of OCW has shifted many policymakingresponsibilities to local governments and school boards. Municipalities are responsible for theprovision of primary and secondary education. In Amsterdam, there is a division ofresponsibilities between the central city government and the governments of the boroughs. Thecentral city government is responsible for secondary education provision and takes a leading rolein particular areas such as the shortage of teachers and policies aimed at tackling the problem ofdrop outs. The central city government also takes the responsibility for the provision ofvocational education. The boroughs bear responsibility for the provision of primary education.UAS and research universities are under direct supervision of the central government. The highereducational institutions budgets are largely financed with funds received directly from theMinistry of OCW. For this reason, local and regional governments have little influence over theprovision of tertiary education.Municipalities in the Netherlands usually invest large amounts of funds in land and property.They subsequently designate the land they own to be used for a particular purpose, which can forinstance be real estate or business development. In Amsterdam, for example, more than half of allhouses in the city is the property of non-profit housing corporations, while the land is owned bythe municipality (OECD, 2007a: 115-6). The municipality of Amsterdam invests substantialshares of its assets in land and business property. In absolute numbers, the municipality ownedland worth EUR 4.9 billion and business property worth almost EUR 1 billion in 2006. In relativenumbers, this was 37.9% and 7.6% of the total assets in 2006, respectively. In their competitionfor businesses, local governments often provide financial inducements in an attempt to attractmore entrepreneurs. In Amsterdam, for example, the municipality runs a microcredit programmethat provides relatively small loans to businesses that do not have access to the mainstream creditmarket. Another initiative is that the municipality disburses subsidies to entrepreneurs inparticular designated neighborhoods who invest in the improvement of their business.1.5.2 Governance in the Amsterdam metropolitan regionThe Amsterdam metropolitan area is the name given to the collaboration of regional and localauthorities in the Northern part of the Randstad. It is important to note that the Amsterdammetropolitan region has no unitary governance structure within the Dutch three-tier governancesystem. Decision making in the metropolitan region is not very different from that on theRandstad governance level. Decisions are made in soft governance arrangements. Thesearrangements are bottom-up initiatives coming from municipalities, often with partners from theprivate sector. These partnerships do not have decision-making powers and seek theimplementation of their proposals by making recommendations. This implies that the Amsterdammetropolitan area is rather a voluntary collaborative initiative at a unique level of governance.The regional partners agree on issues such as the regional economy, construction, employment,infrastructure and land development policy. By making agreements in these areas, the parties joinforces in order to make the Amsterdam metropolitan area an internationally competitive region.The governance of the Amsterdam metropolitan region lies with the Amsterdam metropolitanregion Central Administration. The Administrative control of the Amsterdam metropolitan regionlies with the Coordination Committee. The Amsterdam metropolitan area Central Administrationis responsible for the preparation of Metropolitan conferences and ensures that agreements are29