How was the council members’ rating arrived at?
All council factions were invited at the beginning of December to participate and submit their figures. Of the fifteen parties, more than half (eight) responded to that call, they represent 16 of the 45 Utrecht seats. The coalition parties are not participating, they do not think it is appropriate to assess their own councilors. The largest participating party is the VVD with five seats. CDA and VOLT each have three. The other participating parties each have one seat.
An average was determined from the figures of the eight factions. The four panel members also gave a rating. An average has also been determined for this. The final score of the panel and the final score of the council is then also average. That is the score as we present it.
Who is on the panel of political followers?
Dimitri Gilissen is former party leader of the VVD in the Utrecht council. He is now a member of parliament in the province for the same party. Jasper van Dijk (SP) was until recently a Member of the House of Representatives. Jan Wijmenga is a civil servant in The Hague, but was a councilor and occasional faction leader for the Christian Union for many years. And Marc van Rossum du Chattel is a political reporter for RTV Utrecht, he has been following Utrecht politics for several decades.