The Netherlands court of audit and meta-research: Principles and practice

This chapter looks at the part meta-research can play in bringing order to a flow of primary analyses of government action. It considers this issue from the position of a Supreme Audit Institution, in particular that of the Netherlands Court of Audit (NCA). The chapter discusses meta-research in relation to one of the NCA’s core tasks, namely the conduct of performance audits of central government. It explores the NCA’s role in evaluation analyses. Interest is being shown elsewhere, too, and meta-research and the development of meta-research methods is becoming more widespread. Meta-research plays an important role, for example, in the quality control of university and vocational education, with the Higher Education Inspectorate using test criteria to evaluate reports issued by review committees on the performance of education institutions. In meta-research terms, the audit goals can be formulated as: reviewing the quality of the primary research; reviewing the practice of policy; reviewing the degree of coverage.

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