The opening article introduces the topic of this special issue: the effects the child benefits scandal has (had) on the policy in the Netherlands regarding the position and development of the craftsmanship of civil servants. The scandal has fuelled different government programs that aim at strengthening the position of the civil servant vis-á-vis the politicians. The first two articles in this issue show that this position is still weak. The last two articles are about how and why street level bureaucrats operate as they operate in public encounters. This topic is relevant because the Dutch government is particularly trying to emancipate the civil servants working in de frontline.

Professional expertise is crucial to the functioning of government. Although the vast majority of civil servants strive to do their work well in the interest of society, this does not always guarantee success. For years, civil servants have faced growing challenges in their work. Professional expertise is increasingly undervalued, and their work seems to be obstructed by a tangle of rules and unwieldy structures. This article discusses the results of a survey on professionalism among civil servants. During the survey, civil servants were asked to reflect on various themes related to professional expertise. The authors subsequently discuss the results on (1) civil servant involvement and civil service values; (2) transparency and the interplay with politics; (3) factors that put professional expertise under pressure; and (4) civil servant socialisation through reflection.

The public controversy over the investigation into possible inappropriate behavior by former Parliament Speaker Khadija Arib toward the civil service staff at the House of Representatives exposes a number of weaknesses in the current integrity investigation system. Such problems could be prevented in the future by expanding the existing code of conduct for MPs to include provisions on transgressive behavior and by placing the investigation under an independent integrity board, such as the exiting Integrity Investigation Board.

Street-level bureaucracy as a term was coined by Michael Lipsky, an American political scientist, who launched it in a conference paper presented in 1969. The aggregate phenomenon the term refers to concerns a particular but broad segment of the public and semi-public sector where certain occupations, such as teaching, social work and policing, imply direct contact with individual citizens. Lipsky’s book (1980/2010) became a classic in Public Administration. Since its publication, street-level bureaucracy as an object of academic study has evolved into a scholarly theme of its own. In the study of street-level bureaucracy as now practised by an expanding worldwide community of researchers, applying rules and policy implementation have been joined by a range of other conceptualisations. In research on what happens in the interactions between public officials and individual citizens the focus has shifted more and more towards motivational aspects; links with social psychology have been made. In response, a plea for an ‘institutional (turn or return’ is evident, taking the context of the public encounter into account while making the empirical study of street-level bureaucracy more comparative.

In this article, Caroline Raat introduces the concept of responsivism: a scientific and practical approach in which responsiveness becomes a goal in itself for civil servants. Based on administrative science and sociological literature, she argues that this carries great constitutional risks for citizens. The chances of exclusion and favouritism lurk, especially in a toxic or ‘warm’ organisation. Therefore, she suggests doing what works: better recruitment and selection based on values, and proper training for civil service professionals. A legal basis for this to separate the wheat from the chaff in the ‘training industry’ is necessary.

In this discussion of Nanke Verloo’s Van Slingerlandt speech, Joop Koppenjan endorses her plea for a government and Public Administration with more feeling for how citizens experience their interactions with government on so called critical moments is endorsed. He raises questions regarding her positioning outside the mainstream of Public Administration, her lack of distance towards the interest and intentions of citizens, the emphasis on communication instead of performance, and the difficulty to upscale insights and lessons brought forward by an ethnographic approach.