Cuts in the number of civil servants and merging government ministries must be done with an actual purpose, Tjeenk Willink, deputy president of the government’s Council of State advisory body, is quoted as saying in Thursday’s Volkskrant.

Most political party manifestos include ministerial mergers and civil service cuts without any underlying vision, Willink said in a speech marking the publication of the council’s annual report.
‘In the long term, cuts without vision lead to more costs, not fewer,’ Willink said. ‘We have seen that when we abolished tram conductors.’
‘If developments in the private sector have taught us anything, it is that bigger does not necessarily mean better. Small, homogeneous entities are more effective,’ he said.
The Financieele Dagblad picks up on Willink’s criticism of the way the market is seen to be more important than the public interest.
Parliament should have paid more attention to the sale of the Amsterdam stock exchange to the New York bourse in 2006 and the takeover of ABN Amro by a consortium of three banks in 2007, he said.