University of Twente Student Theses

De belevingswereld van beleidsambtenaren binnen het sociaal domein die de omslag van datagedreven sturing aan het doormaken zijn : een beschrijvend onderzoek dat kijkt naar welke assumpties en aannames beleidsambtenaren hebben bij de omslag van datagedreven sturing en hoe zij hiermee omgaan

Albek, Paul (2022) De belevingswereld van beleidsambtenaren binnen het sociaal domein die de omslag van datagedreven sturing aan het doormaken zijn : een beschrijvend onderzoek dat kijkt naar welke assumpties en aannames beleidsambtenaren hebben bij de omslag van datagedreven sturing en hoe zij hiermee omgaan.

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Abstract:	Since the decentralisation of government tasks from the state to municipalities in 2015, municipalities have been responsible for youth care, work, and income (Participation), and the Social Support Act (Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning, Wmo). Since these decentralisations, many municipalities have been struggling with budget overruns in the social domain. One of the solutions put forward is to work more effectively and efficiently to stay within budget. Where in the private sector a lot of data-driven steering is already in place to serve the customer better and more efficiently, data-driven steering is also making its appearance in the municipal land. In view of the shortage of budgets in the social domain and the introduction of data-driven steering in the social domain in municipalities, we have chosen to look at how this change is experienced by the professionals who are going through this change. A lot has been written about data-driven control in the social domain, and there is a lot of attention for it, but it has not yet been investigated how the policy officials of Dutch municipalities within the social domain experience this change. This research is a descriptive research and specifically phenomenological research that describes a phenomenon how people experience a situation in their daily life. The aim of the research is to provide an insight into how policy officials experience the transition to data-driven steering. The practical purpose of this research is that policy officials in the social domain and possibly other domains can learn from the experiences of the policy officials in this research. It may perhaps allay some fears or bring about curiosity. The main question of the research is ''How do policy officials within the social domain in Dutch municipalities experience the transition to working with data-driven steering?''. The research was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews. In the study, n=13 policy officials of the social domain from thirteen different municipalities were interviewed. Of these municipalities, eleven were large municipalities (>100.000 inhabitants), 1 medium-sized municipality (50.000 > 100.000 inhabitants) and 1 small municipality (<50.000 inhabitants). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, except of one interview all interviews were conducted online via Teams. The interview that was not conducted via Teams was conducted at the town hall where the respondent works. The most important results of the research to answer the research question of this study are briefly described below. The policy officials from the social domain interviewed in this study experience the change to data-driven steering as a process that is going slower than they had expected and hoped. They are, however, aware of the complexity of this change because of the more integrated and cross-domain working methods and the legislation concerning the privacy of citizens, which is a delaying factor in the change to more data-driven control of the social domain. Almost all respondents in the population of this research experience the use of data as pleasant because it provides insight into a problem and gives direction. More data-driven work also makes professionals think about their own way of working. More insights through data also brings more complexity to the issues and a more inquisitive attitude among the policy officials of the social domain. Data is seen as one of the tools in addition to the traditional tools such as staying in touch with implementing organisations and citizens and the knowledge of the professional to make policy. But an instrument that can quickly bring insight, direction and focus to a problem. In addition to being used primarily for evaluation and monitoring, data is now used even more for monitoring by means of real-time dashboards, but the biggest shift is that data is now used more at the front end of policy to better identify a problem. On the other hand, all respondents agree that interpretation and context in dating always remain important.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	88 social and public administration
Programme:	Public Administration MSc (60020)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/90705
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