In the debate on customised services, two opposing (normative) views often emerge. On the one hand, there is the belief that customisation is essential for providing effective support and bridging the gap between lived experiences and the system. On the other hand, there are concerns that customisation fosters arbitrariness and undermines transparency, potentially increasing public distrust in the government. This special issue on customisation delves deeper into this debate by presenting systematic empirical research on its nature, antecedents and consequences. In this introductory article, we address four overarching themes: the various definitions of customisation and the challenges they bring; the significant responsibility placed on professionals; the need to embed customisation within organisational structures; and the often-overlooked perspective of citizens, who play a crucial role in its accomplishment. We conclude with recommendations for further research and practical application.

In Dutch public policy, attention to customisation and the human factor in public service delivery has increased. Existing research on this topic focuses mainly on service-producing tasks. Little is yet known about how civil servants with a regulatory core task implement customisation and the human factor. By means of semi-structured interviews, I investigated how tax inspectors and managers of the tax administration, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), give meaning to these policy notions. In this study, customisation and the human factor appear as characteristics of professional conduct and as politically driven concepts that come with societal expectations. Tax inspectors consider circumstances of taxpayers in the context of increasing their compliance, and they offer them more space in the process to cater to individual circumstances. The human factor has come on top of this as a political concept, without further definition. Tax inspectors struggle with the question to what extent they can take into account individual circumstances, especially when it comes to breaking laws and rules. Tax inspectors have different views on this. In concert with this, tax inspectors also experience increased pressure from taxpayers.

The vitality of frontline professionals is under pressure, as evidenced by increased absenteeism and staff turnover. A recent development that may influence this is the heightened emphasis on customisation. Customisation can lead to better service delivery but also places a heavy responsibility on individual professionals. Research primarily focuses on factors that facilitate customisation and its effects on the population, but little is known about how professionals experience customisation. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship between delivering customisation and the vitality of professionals. Based on survey research among 961 professionals in 84 Dutch social care and youth care teams, this study shows that the effect of customisation on vitality depends on their perceived workload. Only among professionals who perceive they have sufficient time to deliver customisation does it lead to an increased sense of autonomy and thus greater vitality. Among professionals with a high workload, customisation is negatively correlated with their vitality.

Personalisation is increasingly valued as a counterbalance to bureaucratic standardisation in European welfare states. Instead of checklists, personalised solutions emphasise responsiveness and horizontal relationships with citizens. The Dutch Social Support Act 2015 operationalises this through ‘kitchen table conversations’ aiming for personalised services in close cooperation with citizens. However, this policy ideal is increasingly criticised for lacking an equal dialogue.
Yet, the question of how interactions in this unequal setting influence personalised decision-making is underexplored. Drawing on boundary work theory, our ethnographic study, observed ‘face-to-face’ interactions at the ‘kitchen table,’ between professionals and citizens seeking home care. In Rotterdam this is outsourced to the private sector. By formulating administrative decisions as an outcome, citizens are entitled to ‘a clean and liveable house’, yet citizens are uncertain about the specifics of the provision. This is prime example of a case for which the necessary boundary work will need to be done before arriving at the final arrangements.
The research on the impact of boundary work provides three important reflections for personalised services. Firstly, it highlights professional-imposed boundaries, limiting the influence of citizens on how personalisation is operationalised. Secondly, personalisation of (social) support often remains invisible because it falls outside the provider’s tasks. Finally, important cues for personalisation are missed due to a strong demarcation of support as mere cleaning. These are missed opportunities for personalisation. Reflection is therefore needed on how the kitchen table conversation can be transformed into a valuable rather than bureaucratic process to better utilise the potential for personalisation for citizens.

This study provides a secondary analysis of interview data on the perspective of youth care professionals on societal expectations and customisation. Societal expectations, along with those from the government, pro-fessional groups and the market, influence the decisions professionals make to provide appropriate solutions and tailored services. From the perspective of youth care profes-sionals, we identified five societal expecta-tions: 1) youth care workers can solve all problems; 2) youth care workers unjustly remove children from their homes; 3) young people cause their own problems; 4) youth care is unavailable when needed; and 5) youth care could be provided more efficient-ly. These societal expectations differ from those of the government, professional groups and the market. They are more elusive and for instance cannot be traced back to key documents. Yet they play a crucial role in the daily work of youth care professionals. So-cietal expectations are associated with multi-ple interpretations of customisation, result oriented as well as more process oriented. Due to the complex problems of young peo-ple, it is important to emphasise the process-oriented approach to customisation in addi-tion to the result-oriented approach.

The government seeks to restore public trust by prioritising customised services and a citizen-centred approach in its public service delivery. While frontline workers are granted greater discretionary authority, they face dilemmas in justifying tailor-made decisions that sometimes deviate from formal rules. This study, based on twelve interviews with managers and frontline workers at the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV), examines the critical role of frontline managers in balancing customisation with accountability. Managers encourage collective discretion, critically examine decisions, and justify them to higher management. These practices ensure that customisation and accountability are not viewed as conflicting but as mutually reinforcing. Theoretically, this paper adds an accountability perspective to the literature on managing frontline workers. Practically, it highlights the importance of actively fostering learning communities and promoting reflection within teams. This enables managers to not only support customised service delivery but also reshape the relationship between management and the frontline.

The relationship between policy and implementation is under heightened scrutiny due to various issues within Dutch executive organisations, such as the Tax Administration/Benefits and the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV). Recent reports have highlighted the Dutch national government as a significant cause of ‘unprecedented injustice,’ yet local governments struggle to support their constituents effectively. Municipalities for instance have witnessed citizens being disadvantaged by governmental policies and actions, and consequently seeking debt assistance or applying for benefits. This article explores how municipalities identify the signs of these problematic situations, organise responses to these situations, and learn from these experiences. We argue that effective public services revolve around the ability to detect signs, organise responses to them, and systematically learn from them. We provide empirical examples of how this occurs in three Dutch municipalities and discuss the conditions that promote or hinder effective service delivery at the frontline. We conclude with recommendations for both practice and research.

Notwithstanding a rising demand for strategic knowledge in the environmental domain at the regional level in the Netherlands, its production is mainly organised at the Dutch national level. Various parties have called for the establishment of regional knowledge institutions. Experiences of PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency however show that focusing on implementing these institutional fixes fails to recognise the multi-level character of the policy context in which the demand for strategic knowledge arises. Based on three PBL projects, this article shows how knowledge production arrangements are designed in continuous interaction between knowledge demand, method and positioning of PBL. This leads to a variety of outcomes. This article concludes with a typology of multi-level knowledge production arrangements, based on these experiences. The typology is intended to advance the debate on the organisation of such arrangements within a multi-level policy context in a reflexive and problem-specific way.