Samenvatting

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.