Work programme

Each year, the Health Council draws up a work programme containing an overview of the issues that will form the subjects of advice for the coming calendar year.

This does not automatically mean that a report will be published on every one of these subjects during the programme year. The work programme shows what the Health Council has on the agenda for the coming year and charts which projects will be further developed, which will result in an advisory report and which new topics will be introduced that year.

The topics are arranged according to the Council’s focus areas. Sometimes the work programme plans gradually change in the course of the year, for example when ministers set new priorities.

The work programmes contain a list of planned or running projects as well as a list of topics that have not yet been included in the advice programme but could find a place in a future work programme.

Procedure

The work programme is drawn up after conferring with various departments and consulting with groups within the Health Council. The Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport then adopts the final work programme and submits it to the States General on the third Tuesday of September (Budget Day). This procedure has been laid down in the Advisory Bodies Framework Act.

Funds and clients

The Health Council is fully financed by the Dutch government. The Council is allocated a budget that consists of contributions from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport; the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment; the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation; and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, as well as incidental contributions from other ministries.

The Council considers as its clients the ministers of the abovementioned departments. Parliament can also submit a request for advice to the Council.