Cuts to the Dutch civil service and the choice of which tasks to drop

On 22 September 2026, in its letter on the 2027 draft budgets, the Netherlands Court of Audit (Algemene Rekenkamer) added up the cuts to the civil service. The Schoof government built in a rising savings target from 2025; the Jetten government added a second on top and increased it in August 2026. Together, the planned cut compared with 2024 comes to about €3.4bn in 2035. According to the projections, operating costs of the core ministries, agencies and large services such as the Tax and Customs Administration and Rijkswaterstaat, the public works agency, fall from €24.9bn in 2026 to €21.7bn in 2031. Adjusted for prices, that is below the 2021 level. Defence is exempt from the cut. In 2025 the core ministries already spent 12 per cent less on external hires.

How the cut will be achieved is not stated. According to the Court of Audit, the cut affects not only policy directorates and staff departments but also implementation, with Rijkswaterstaat, inspectorates and RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, as examples. Through the Van der Maas motion, the House of Representatives asked each ministry for a target for fewer civil servants, the measures involved and a timetable. The Court of Audit did not find those choices or their staffing consequences in the draft budgets, and calls on the government to draw up clear plans. The Interior Ministry (BZK) itself wrote on 20 May 2026, in its letter accompanying the Jaarrapportage Bedrijfsvoering Rijk 2025, the annual report on central government operations, that the choices may affect services. Central government headcount in FTEs still grew by 2 per cent in 2025, after 6 per cent in 2024, and the share of external hires fell from 15.4 to 13.1 per cent.

Meanwhile, tasks are being added. In a factsheet of 16 September 2026, the Court of Audit brought together 269 implementation assessments for 134 new laws and regulations from six ministries, drawn from its accountability audits for 2024 and 2025. In 111 assessments, information on feasibility, the staff required, or both, is missing, and 83 assessments are not public. Those that do give figures add up to about 537 FTEs and almost €62 million in structural costs; according to the Court of Audit, the real scale is higher. Only 8 assessments foresee a saving on staff and 6 on costs. At the same time, implementing agencies report that they are struggling with staff shortages.

How it feels on the ground was the question put by the public-sector magazine Binnenlands Bestuur and the consultancy Berenschot between 25 September and 31 October 2025. After data cleaning, 2,289 responses remained, 76 per cent from municipal civil servants and 11 per cent from central government civil servants. Of these, 56 per cent find the workload high or too high, with understaffing and unrealistic planning as the main causes. Twelve per cent want to leave within a year, fewer than a year earlier; in central government 18 per cent are considering leaving, in municipalities 12 per cent.

How solid is this? The cut has only been under way since 2025, and the biggest steps come after 2027. The Court of Audit and BZK describe the risk to services, but there are no measured effects on implementation or staff yet.