The application of businesslike planning and control in local government: A field study of eight Dutch municipalities

The Policy and Management instruments (PMI) project, an initiative of central government in the Netherlands, aimed at familiarising local authorities with new was of governance and management, This article is a cross-sectional study of the application of planning and control techniques in eight Dutch municipalities. It addresses five issues: (I) the extent to which the goals of the PMI project have been realised; (2) the information to be included in the planning and control documents; (3) the value of replacing a uniform output-oriented control framework but differentiated control; (4) whether organisational units are more committed to self-developed than to centrally developed control systems; (5) whether success depends not only on the introduction of adequate instruments, but also on other factors, Ir ends with an attempt to show possible relationships between these issues for the eight municipalities.