This blog starts with a translation of this information in Dutch
The Dutch Aldermen’s Association is a professional association (1) for aldermen (2) of Dutch municipalities. Out of almost 1,500 aldermen, about 900 are members of the association.
History of origin
The Aldermen’s Association was founded in 2004 by Jacques Niederer (then VVD alderman in Breda), Paul Depla (then PvdA alderman in Nijmegen) and Wilbert Stolte (then CDA alderman in The Hague). They formed the first board of the association. The reason for creating an association was the referendum for an elected mayoralty. The aldermen wanted to prevent this from having a major impact on the aldermanship. In addition, the dualism introduced in 2002 with regard to municipal administration played a role.
When, as a result of “Van Thijn’s Night”, the plan for the elected mayor fell through, the importance for a professional association temporarily dropped somewhat. In 2006, the then board stressed that the professionalisation of the office was still on the agenda. Especially because, due to dualism, aldermen became less politician but more administrator. This required different competences for aldermen. For this reason, the association was revived and, as a result, its membership increased. The association’s board consists of several aldermen spread across the country and political parties.
Goal
The Aldermen’s Association sees aldermanship as a specific political-administrative profession that can be further professionalised. With this in mind, the association promotes the interests of aldermen with the state and ministries. Furthermore, the association plays a role in confidential consultation in municipal governance crises, aggression and violence against aldermen, integrity-related questions and legal status questions of aldermen. In addition, the Aldermen’s Association has a professionalisation programme with intervision, training, master classes and courses for aldermen.
Among others, the association drew attention to possible overcharging of aldermen in 2013 and threats against aldermen at the time of the asylum debate in 2015.
Office
The office of the Aldermen’s Association is housed in the Willemshof office building in The Hague, which houses the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, the Dutch Association of Mayors and the Association of Municipal Secretaries, among others. Jeroen van Gool is director of the Aldermen’s Association office.
(1) A professional organisation is a group of people with the same type of education and/or profession who have joined together. For example, there are professional organisations of accountants, actuaries, lawyers, notaries, doctors, architects, tax advisers, economists, bailiffs and engineers. With this, professional organisations consist mainly of practitioners of liberal professions, unlike trade unions.
Some professional organisations date back to the 19th century and then carry the predicate Royal. As a rule, new organisations arise from private initiative, but they are also sometimes established by law. These are the so-called public law professional organisations.
(2) The position of alderman is somewhat comparable to that of political office holders at national and provincial level, a minister and a deputy, respectively. With the mayor, aldermen form the College of Mayor and Aldermen (often called College of B&W), the day-to-day administration of the municipality.
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Translated by Cora Westerink (1965), alumna Tilburg University and Arts Academy
