TiREG

The role of local council members in regional policymaking

Researchers

  • Tamara Metze-Burghouts
  • Janneke Rutgers-Zoet
  • Martijn Groenleer

Commissioned by

  • Regio Hart van Brabant

Period

  • 2016-2017

Summary

The safeguarding of democratic legitimacy is an ongoing debate in regional and inter-municipal governance. In 2015, local town council members from the region ‘Hart van Brabant’ in the South of the Netherlands, demanded an investigation of the role of local town-councils in regional governance, and an exploration of what their role could be in the future. This demand resulted in commissioned research and a publication titled Raadsleden met een hart voor Brabant by Tamara Metze (Wageningen University), Janneke Rutgers (PhD candidate and entrepreneur) and Martijn Groenleer (TiREG).

In order to answer the question how town councils can safeguard democratic legitimacy of regional governance, the research was divided into three parts: a survey among the town councils, aldermen and mayors; an exploration of the influence of town councils on regional governance in other Dutch regions; and an interactive session with council members, aldermen and mayors from the Hart van Brabant region to develop preferred options for the region. The results show that councilors in the region are very much concerned with the topic and willing to improve it.

The research resulted in the formulation of three scenarios, defining different degrees of formal (static) and informal (more dynamic and learning) influence of town council members on regional governance. The current governance structure of regional collaboration in Hart van Brabant is a ‘light’ or ‘intermediate’ scenario, which means that there is no regional council with structural voting rights, but town councilors of collaborating towns are informed at regional sessions and ‘council days’.

Participants in the interactive sessions and in the surveys suggested to improve and increase the involvement of local town councils in a dynamic and learning way rather than increase formal influence. Therefore, the advice is to a) organise interactive regional sessions; b) improve (interactive) information sharing; c) involving town council members in an early stage of the decision making process; and d) improvement of monitoring instruments such as a dashboard at the website and regular thematic meetings at the regional level.

Publications

  • Metze-Burghouts, T., Rutgers-Zoet, J. & Groenleer, M. (2017) Raadsleden met een hart voor Brabant
  • Metze-Burghouts, T. & Rutgers-Zoet, J. (2016) Presentatie Rol van raadsleden in de regio. Wageningen University & Research