As in many countries, autonomisation of organisations in the public
sector has been common practice in the Netherlands in the last decades.
A wide variety of organisational structures has been used which makes
it hard to understand how autonomised organisations are controlled. In
this project, emphasis is on the ex ante controls that are used by
Parliament to create organisations as well as to appropriate resources to
them. Attribution of responsibility and production characteristics
including issues on ownership and commissioning are important
aspects to be considered when organising ex ante controls for
autonomised organisations. Given these characteristics, a one size fits
all approach in controlling autonomised organisations is not suitable,
not even within subgroups of organisations. An empirical study on
cases from within one subgroup of autonomised organisations shows
that there is still a strong emphasis on budgetary control only rather
than on performance control. Little attention is given to specifications
of services and problems of ownership and commissioning which could
be used as tools for differentiation in contro