Good neighbours or distant friends? Trust between Dutch ministries and their executive agencies

The widespread creation of executive agencies, carrying out public tasks and policies at arms ’ length of the government, has intensified the delegation problem. Agency autonomy reduces politicians ’ insight into agency performance. Hierarchical controls are no longer applicable, and market controls do not al-ways work effectively. Trust is suggested as the new mode of governance. Giving autonomy to agencies would be conceived as a sign of trust, and this gift will be reciprocated and thus lead to goal alignment, commitment and good performance. We tested the effect of agency autonomy on agency trust for the Dutch case, using survey data on 219 public sector organizations with varying degrees of autonomy. Contrary to the expectations executive agencies with low degrees of autonomy have more trust than agencies with high autonomy. Proximity and frequent interactions appear more important to trust than high levels of autonomy. There are however complex patterns for different types of autonomy