Van der Burg plans to use more AI so government can cut payroll

Deputy home affairs minister Eric van der Burg has set out plans to cut the number of civil servants by 16% by 2035 in a wide-ranging efficiency drive.

Van der Burg said he wanted to take 25,000 government officials off the payroll by standardising IT systems and using other tools to make government more efficient, including AI.

The VVD minister, whose official title is State Secretary for Decisive Government, also plans to reduce the number of advisory bodies and committees, currently 28 and 150 respectively, he wrote in a letter to parliament.

It is the first time Van der Burg has put a number on the civil service cuts, which the cabinet hopes will save €3.5 billion a year by 2035. The announcement confirms earlier reports in the Telegraaf that the cabinet plans to use AI technologies to streamline the apparatus of government.

The minister has not said which departments will have to bear the brunt of the savings, but the police and the defence budgets are expected to be excluded.

However, government agencies that are currently under strain such as the tax office and the employment benefits agency UWV are not likely to be spared.

Simpler regulation

Van der Burg said some of the savings could be made by having fewer regulations and “exceptions to exceptions”. The cabinet has committed to scrapping 500 rules a year under the coalition agreement drawn up by the D66, VVD and CDA parties.

But he admitted that not all the reductions could be compensated by more efficient methods. “Some choices will have to be made regarding what the government should be doing less or not at all,” Van der Burg said.

He also said the government wanted to tighten the rules around the freedom of information law Woo, which citizens and journalists rely on to access public information.

“The requests for information are frequently so broad that it is no longer clear what information we are supposed to provide,” he wrote.