D66 wants to halve the number of councils

Left-wing liberal party D66 wants to halve the number of councils from 400 to around 200 and create one mega-province for the Randstad, the party said on Monday.

The party says councils should be merged into larger organisations otherwise they will not be able to cope with the additional responsibilities being devolved to them by the state.
‘We have been talking for decennia about smaller government and now is the time to actually take this step,’ D66 MP Gerard Schouw told the press.
He says the move could save €700m between now and 2017, a figure that could then grow to over €1bn a year.
‘The Netherlands is too small for so many councils’, he said. It creates too much explanation between councillors and civil servants and throws up too many, often contradictory, rules for individuals and companies. ‘This is a waste our our time and energy,’ he said.
Mega-province
Creating a metropolitan Randstand province, consisting of Noord and Zuid Holland, Utrecht and Flevoland, was mooted in early 2007, but received a muted response.
A working party led by former prime minister Wim Kok said the current structure of separate councils was cumbersome and decision-making took too long.
‘There is not one institution which represents the whole area, which is a serious shortfall,’ Kok said at the time. ‘There are joint discussion forums, but they often make things more complicated and cause delays.’
The idea was shelved three months later.
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