Municipalities wishes
Fanny van Paassen is strategic account manager for municipalities and provinces at CBS: ‘Municipalities and provinces form an important administrative layer in the Netherlands. They ensure that policies are implemented in daily practice. They face major societal issues such as the housing challenge or the nitrogen crisis. Insights into what actually happens using data and statistics can help in making well-founded choices. We would like to hear from municipalities and provinces what information needs they have. That is why we, for example, collaborate with the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), Interprovincial Consultation (IPO), and Association for Statistics and Research (VSO). Based on current questions and requests, a priority list has been established that we will work on this year.’Update
Marcel van Wijk is statistical researcher Region and Space of the Living Environment sector: ‘In consultation with municipalities, VSO, and VNG, the table Core figures neighborhoods and districts has been renewed. We publish this much-visited StatLine table annually since 1995. In recent months, we have been busy updating these tables with indicators at municipality, neighborhood, and district level. We did this after consultation with the mentioned parties and also experts from CBS.’
Examples of new data
‘For example, we have added a new indicator for gas-free homes. More and more homes have a heat pump or hybrid heating system and are no longer dependent on natural gas. With this indicator, we map how many gas-free homes there are per neighborhood and district.With the introduction of the new poverty definition from cooperation between CBS, Nibud, and SCP, we replace the definition “low income” and “social minimum at household level”. In their place come new indicators that show the percentage of “people in poverty” and the indicator for the group just above that (up to a maximum of 25 percent). For municipalities, these are important figures for implementing their poverty policies.’
‘In the past, it was chosen to include homes built before and from 2000 in the core figures table. However, this distinction is becoming less relevant. Besides insight into the number of new-build homes for all neighborhoods and districts in the Netherlands, consultations with municipalities have shown a need to have an overview of the number of houses built in the past 10 years. This classification has the advantage that it will remain relevant and applicable in the coming years.’
Municipality of Leeuwarden
Jaap Stuiver is senior researcher at the municipality of Leeuwarden and very pleased with the update of figures at neighborhood level: ‘We gain insights that we would not have had otherwise if we could not use these figures. Think of combining income data and gas consumption at neighborhood level to map possible (energy) poverty. Another example is insight into the housing market down to district level. These data are of great added value to us because we use them to gain insights and make considerations for municipal policy.’Figures on the Map
An important visualization where many municipality, neighborhood, and district figures can be found is Figures on the Map.Bahar Molazem is coordinator of Figures on the Map: ’The updates in the Core figures Neighborhoods and Districts table, which Marcel explained, have also been implemented in Figures on the Map. The map now shows more current figures and new topics up to and including 2025. This allows users to work with the most recent regional data. At the same time, the Figures on the Map team continuously works on the development and improvement of the design based on feedback from external users. Besides figures at municipality, neighborhood, and district level, figures are displayed by squares of 500 by 500 meters. This functionality, combined with the renewed design, will be delivered by end of 2026.’
Mapping needs
Robert Selten is researcher and information manager at the municipality of Utrecht: ‘The VSO is a national network of municipal and provincial researchers. Knowledge exchange takes place via various platforms. Because of the important role CBS has in making regional statistics available, CBS is connected as a knowledge partner to the VSO Statistics platform. Through that platform, I was approached by CBS to map the needs municipalities have for regional statistics, especially at neighborhood and district level. From the VSO platform, we reached a consensus advice on the selection of figures at neighborhood and district level that meets the needs of municipalities. CBS has been very constructive in thinking along about which wishes are feasible. Some wishes are not feasible at the low district level, for example because it concerns survey data. Based on our wish list, several updates in the core figures table have been implemented, a very nice result!’Figures at the lowest level
Selten: ‘As a research department, we have many figures about our own city at our disposal. However, many figures gain more meaning when you can compare them with other municipalities. The municipal figures on StatLine are excellent for this. In addition, policy officers often need figures at the lowest level so that policy can be tailored accordingly. For this, neighborhood and district figures are crucial. For source files that we as a municipality manage ourselves, such as the population file, we can make this breakdown at a low level ourselves. But CBS has many more sources at its disposal than a municipality itself. Such municipality, neighborhood, and district figures provide many insights on specific policy themes and add great value. That is why it is so nice that CBS has contacted VSO to better align the publication of regional figures with the needs of municipalities.’Dashboard Overview regional statistics
For those who have not yet found the desired regional data on StatLine or Figures on the Map, they can always go to the new dashboard Overview regional Statistics. Here is an overview of all StatLine tables that contain statistics with a regional breakdown. Until recently, this information was downloadable in an Excel file. This overview was one of the most downloaded regional files from CBS.In the new overview, it is easy to filter on a specific theme, for example population, safety and law, or nature and environment. Furthermore, the dashboard contains filters for the regional classifications. These range from national level to neighborhoods and districts. In addition, there are various other classifications such as police districts, Safe at Home regions, and agricultural areas.