How the City of Utrecht achieved major budget savings through innovative service reviews

Learning points

There are two main lessons to be learned from this best practice case study:

1. The innovative municipal austerity plan in Utrecht added value by starting from an a priori investigation that enabled strategic decision making and linked the restoration of fiscal balance with a strategic repositioning of the organisation.
2. Although level of ownership and acceptance of the overall review results varied between department directors, the execution of the review has certainly led to an undisputed sense of urgency on the part of the directors to take control over the process of modernization.

The lessons from Utrecht show that combining internal expertise, experience and talent with external perspectives provides great value and opportunities for delivering high quality results in the context of limited time and budget.