The 12 Dutch provinces hire far more external staff than they should under government guidelines, according to Socialist Party research.

If the provinces adhered to the same standards – that no more than 10% of spending on staff should go on bringing in people from outside – they could save a combined €67m a year, the SP says.

Noord-Holland is the worst offender. Last year almost 34% of its total staffing costs went on people who were hired in. Overijssel, Zeeland and Flevoland all came in under the 10% norm.

Cities

The SP also looked at the four big cities where there was also a wide disparity. Utrecht spent 17.7% of its budget for staff on external hires, but Rotterdam’s bill was just 4.5% of the total. Amsterdam and The Hague also broke the 10% norm.

MP Ronald van Raak said it appeared as if councils had taken on a lot of external experts to prepare for the ongoing decentralisation of care services.

‘It is pretty useless if the government is trying to save money by decentralising services while councils are bringing in expensive external staffers at the same time,’ he said.