20 jaar Verantwoordingsdag: Inzicht voor Kamercommissies

The 20th Accountability Day of the Netherlands House of Representatives is a fitting occasion to research if Dutch Members of Parliament use Performance Information (PI). Performance Information use by managers and politicians is a basic assumption for managing and guiding Performance-based Budgeting. Ironically, from literature review on Performance Use we know that politicians and especially parliamentarians do not use Performance Information for decision making or scrutiny. This is specifically so when PI-reports are long. Using the framework of accountability of Bovens (2007) and by using content analysis of the questions, motions and debates of the Standing Committees on the annual reports this article shows that in all phases (informing, debating, sanctions) performance information is used by MP’s. Contradicting earlier research on parliamentarians we found that they use annual reports and reports of the Court of Audit as their main sources in the debates. This article shows that the use of PI in parliament is steadily rising. The growing importance of performance information for Accountability is further illustrated by the strengthening of the accountability forum. Key words: performance information, accountability, Parliament, annual reports, Performance-based Budgeting

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