Dutch cabinet wants AI to help slash civil service: Telegraaf

The cabinet is planning to slash the civil service with the help of new AI technologies, which could save hundreds of millions of euros, the Telegraaf reported on Thursday.

Sources told the paper that Eric van der Burg, the VVD junior home affairs minister, will soon present targets for cutting staff numbers, although estimates are not yet known.

Experts told the Telegraaf the rise in civil servants, which went from 140,000 in 2021 to 170,000 last year, that things are not improving. One said the government is being stifled with ever more rules and subsidies.

Policy officials in particular, who have almost doubled to 20,000 in the past decade, are putting needless pressure on the government, one analyst said.

Insiders said using AI could save an extra €200 million in both 2028 and 2029. A further €200 million has been planned for the interior ministry’s budget for the following year, rising to €1 billion a year from 2035.

Van der Burg is reported to be partly following the thinking of an advisory committee on the future of the civil service, which is due to present conclusions this year.

Ahead of a meeting with MPs, the committee said digitalisation and AI can make government more efficient, but only if the build-up of rules and checks is also tackled.

Government economist Jos Blank wrote that the state had been underperforming for decades, and that a constant stream of new rules, subsidies and mergers was making public services worse.

Former senior civil servant Roel Bekker criticised growing “policy overload” and called for the number of policy officials to be cut by 20% to 30%.