The king’s outspoken commissioner is accused of creating a culture of fear

The quality of public administration is real „love baby”, his love child, said the Gelderland King’s Commissioner John Berends (CDA) in an interview on Radio 1 at the beginning of this year. “Everything stands or falls with the quality of public administration,” said Berends. “What kind of people are there, who still makes themselves available for all kinds of political administrative positions? I deal with that almost every day.”

It is the management qualities of Berends himself that are now under a magnifying glass. This weekend the newspaper wrote The Gelderlander that there is a “culture of fear” at the Gelderland provincial government, which is due to Berends. The newspaper spoke to about ten anonymous civil servants and stakeholders who allegedly had to deal with outbursts of anger, bullying behavior and sometimes also “physically inappropriate behavior”.

The outside world does not notice this, according to the article, because Berends is said to have “two faces”: outwardly an enthusiastic ‘people person’, inwardly a man who tolerates no contradiction. An employee survey, obtained by De Gelderlander, confirms this picture.

In a response in the newspaper, Berends said he did not recognize himself in the article. In his own words, he is a director “with vision and persuasiveness and I convey that.” The faction leaders of the Provincial Council will meet in an emergency meeting on Monday evening to discuss the issue.

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John Berends started his career in management positions at the Police Academy. He was a municipal councilor and later alderman and deputy mayor in Zwolle. In 2005 he became mayor of Harderwijk, and in 2012 in Apeldoorn. He was known as a party song and was nicknamed ‘John Confetti Cannon’. In 2019, Berends was installed as the king’s commissioner in Gelderland.

For someone in office who has to remain politically neutral, he is quite outspoken

As a director in Gelderland, Berends is quite outspoken for someone who must remain politically neutral in office. For example, in 2022 he called on Twitter (now X) for heavier sanctions against Russia, turned against the protest with inverted flags and spoke out against a fireworks ban. In July, after the fall of the cabinet, he said on the same medium that he found it “insolent” to demand that Prime Minister Mark Rutte resign. “He has served our country with heart and soul for more than 10 years.”

Two years ago, Berends dismissed the acting mayor of Scherpenzeel, Eppie Klein, because, according to the commissioner, he had not acted with integrity in the proposed merger with the municipality of Barneveld. Klein later said in interviews that he found Berends’ attitude “very unpleasant”: the former mayor did not feel safe to have a frank conversation with Berends.

‘Aim for more power’

The article in De Gelderlander comes at a striking time: there is a plan to put the provincial cabinet – the team that helps Berends with his tasks – directly under his leadership, and no longer under the director of the province. The decision has not yet been made, the works council is against it. The anonymous civil servants in De Gelderlander fear that Berends is “looking for more power”.

Not everyone recognizes the picture that officials paint. Rudi Tink was municipal secretary in Harderwijk during Berends’ mayorship. “It surprises me,” says Tink. “Berends sometimes argued fiercely, but no more than that. I have never noticed any form of inappropriate behavior whatsoever.”

The Provincial Executive of Gelderland finds the revelations about Berends “shocking”, according to an official response to the website. “We regularly ask our employees how they are doing.” A work perception survey earlier this year showed that social insecurity had decreased compared to last year. Because the study also showed that there are “concerns” in a number of places, the province started a follow-up study before the summer. The first results are expected within a month.

Correction September 17, 2023: An earlier version of this article stated that Rudi Tink was municipal secretary in Apeldoorn. This was supposed to be Harderwijk and has been adjusted here.

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