Contractual governance, a term introduced by Yeatman (1994), is gaining ground in the social services. The concept refers to a fundamental change in the governing of social services. Governance implies a new way of directing and controlling the provision of services; the wellknown expression ‘steering, not rowing’ means that governments are withdrawing from the direct responsibility of providing services themselves or from directly subsidising on an input basis non-profit organisations that are responsible for providing such services:

Governments have changed governing services by splitting up purchasers and providers, by output financing and by outsourcing services. Consequently, new ways of control are needed to guarantee that public means are used efficiently, effectively, and according to the policy objectives that are set by the administration. One way to guarantee this is through contractualisation. The assumption behind contractualisation is threefold: reducing bureaucracy, improving quality and efficiency, and increasing flexibility and diversity. Contracts replace former bureaucratic hierarchical systems of control in order to guarantee that the partners who get the responsibility of providing services of general interest will actually fulfil this responsibility – regardless of whether these are private, public, for profit or non-profit partners. This tendency takes a different shape depending on the welfare state, on very specific fabrics of service systems, relations between governments, and the degree of corporatism in the provision of services. Path dependency is important here, as well as the political assumptions of the successive administrations.

In this chapter we explore the theoretical assumptions as well as the consequences of this trend towards contractual governance by analysing several domains of public services as well as the role of and effects on professionals in the Netherlands.