Municipal expenditures rose from €55.3 billion to nearly €86 billion. Joint arrangements had expenditures of €10.7 billion in 2017 and €13.2 billion in 2024.
A joint arrangement is a regional cooperation between municipalities, provinces, or water boards. Examples include safety regions, municipal health services (GGDs), social employment agencies, inter-municipal social services, and environmental services.
From 2018, expenditures of joint arrangements generally grew less strongly than those of municipalities. Only in 2020 and 2021 was it the other way around, when expenditures of GGDs and safety regions were temporarily much higher during the corona pandemic.
From 2010 through 2017, expenditures of joint arrangements grew more than those of municipalities, except in 2015. That year, expenditures of joint arrangements decreased because the urban regions were abolished.
The shift to slower expenditure growth from 2018 is related to the transfer of tasks to municipalities and specific developments within municipalities. The three biggest differences are in income schemes, social workplaces, and safety.
The expenditures on the policy area of Income Schemes increased less at joint arrangements between 2018 and 2023 than at municipalities (almost 15 percent versus 27 percent). This is because more municipalities are performing tasks in this area themselves again, instead of through an inter-municipal social service.
Such a social service performs tasks for participating municipalities in social security (such as social assistance benefits) and receives a budget from the municipalities. After 2017, several inter-municipal social services were abolished.
Expenditures in the policy area of Safety increased more at municipalities (40 percent) than at joint arrangements (32 percent). This includes disaster management, fire services, and supervision and enforcement of public order. The last task – enforcement of public order – is only performed by municipalities.
The stronger increase at municipalities is due to many enforcement officers being employed in several large municipalities between 2018 and 2023. To a lesser extent, compensation for earthquake damage in Groningen also plays a role in the increase, due to higher expenditures for municipalities in that province.
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