The Dutch Association for the Judiciary (NVvR) wrote a letter to the Board on November 11, 2025 to raise attention to the rapidly growing dissatisfaction and unrest within the Public Prosecution Service. The Boards response to the NVvR can be read here. In this response, the Board addresses the concerns and the steps now being taken to offer employees more perspective.
Response of the Board
Dear Mr. Fierstra,
In your letter of November 11, 2025, to the Board of Procurators General (hereinafter: Board), you indicate, among other things, that the consequences of the ongoing ICT problems combined with the continuously high workload and the announced budget cuts lead to discouragement and feelings of frustration. You also request the Board to be transparent about the strategic and financial choices the organization makes.
The Board is grateful for bringing the concerns of your members to attention. These align with signals the Board has received from the Public Prosecution Service and which we as a Board have also exchanged several times with you as NVvR. In this letter, I will address both the ICT issues and the tighter financial frameworks.
ICT issues
The past months have been difficult for many employees due to the ICT breach, which was preceded by years of ICT problems. Because the focus is constantly on solving incidents, an imbalance has arisen in the deployment of people and resources. Capacity needed for policy, management, innovation, and future-oriented development disappears into daily operations.
To still realize the transition to a well-functioning, well-secured, modern information provision, an i-Vision has been written which, combined with an i-Strategy and i-Plan, will be presented to the Board at the end of this year. These plans cover five themes: reliable IV services, digital resilience, modern and flexible IT landscape, accessible and meaningful information, mature IV organization. Improvements are being implemented step by step. The principle is that IV services to the Public Prosecution Service units must be guaranteed.
We have mapped the main problems and will provide appropriate solutions where possible. For example, a new environment is being set up for the persistent Outlook issues. This new environment has more capacity: this means more mail traffic can be processed and Outlook functions better again. The switch to this environment is expected to last until the end of Q1 2026, but because the old environment is less loaded, the first positive experiences are already noticeable.
The recently installed additional servers have already had a noticeable positive impact on the (home) working environment, which gives confidence in further improvements to follow. In addition, we are carefully going through the procurement process for office automation. This means we are evaluating different providers to choose a solution that offers more stability, reliability, and user experience in the long term. This process requires careful steps and considerations, so we cannot yet give a fixed timeline. We want to keep employees involved in further communication so that they gain more perspective, develop understanding of the process, and feel well informed and involved.
Tighter financial frameworks
At the same time as the ICT issues, the Public Prosecution Service faces the challenge of staying within tighter financial frameworks. This has various reasons. An important factor is the advancing insight into the draft multi-year IV plan, including the Emma program plan. Among others, the organizational development trajectory and software development including the underlying infrastructure, investment in the further development of the IV organization for future management, geopolitical developments, and the need to be less dependent on external hiring are important influences.
Furthermore, the Public Prosecution Service has received (earmarked) budgets from the Ministry of Justice and Security in recent years. The various intensification budgets could often not be used directly, for example because plans had to be worked out, required staff could not be recruited immediately, and IV adjustments could not always be realized on time. In recent years, the Public Prosecution Service has therefore covered several necessary structural costs in consultation with the department from these underutilized budgets. However, it is expected that these extra budgets will be predictably less or possibly not available at all in the coming years.
Also, several submitted claims in the spring rounds were acknowledged, but the Public Prosecution Service had to absorb the (mostly structural) financial consequences itself within its framework. This was based on the then practical insight that the Public Prosecution Service could temporarily cover the extra costs itself. In addition, there has been a declining inflow of new cases for several years. For the coming years, it is also expected that – without intervention – this declining trend will continue. This affects the financing of the Public Prosecution Service. Finally, a foreseeable cut in the Public Prosecution Service budget is also taken into account due to nationwide budget cuts from the coalition agreement and other nationwide financial issues.
The Board is currently in talks with the Ministry of Justice & Security about the financial challenge and the needs of our organization. We also raise this point in the formation process.
Nevertheless, all Public Prosecution Service units must take into account a tighter framework in their 2026 budgets. They have been asked to indicate which measures are necessary to achieve this and what consequences this has. Ultimately, the Board must make choices at the end of this year about which measures will be taken by the unit itself and which will be implemented organization-wide. We do this with attention to the units and our employees – with attention to the human dimension. In this way, we aim to make choices consistently, transparently, and in line with broader organizational developments. Given the percentage (for most units 4.5 - 5.5 percent) that must be cut, the Board assumes that there will be no direct personnel consequences next year.
Communication to employees
Your call also emphasizes the need to communicate transparently to employees (continuously). We naturally share this. For that reason, more attention will be paid to periodically informing the organization so that employees continue to have a realistic future perspective.
Last week, the Board spoke with managers of all Public Prosecution Service units. In those sessions, problems and bottlenecks experienced on the work floor were shared. In the conversations between the Board and management of the units, it was also expressed that the performance agreements made will not always be achievable due to the ICT disruption and current issues.
In the coming period, the Board will engage more frequently with employees and managers. The Board has offered to visit the units in this context.
Closing
This letter provides insight into how the Board shapes both the ICT issues and the tighter financial frameworks. The Board has spoken with you as NVvR several times on both topics. My intention is to continue doing so. I want to emphasize that the conversation with employees is indispensable; together we give shape to the unique social task of the Public Prosecution Service.
Sincerely,
The Board of Procurators General
F.M. Damme
