The Centre of Expertise (HEC) is an independent foundation concerned with issues relating to ICT and management in the public sector.
Given the complexity of our assignments, we largely employ people who have already built up the necessary years of experience in this field, whether in government service, the private sector or the scientific community.
Because of the nature of our work, we usually operate in teams, to combine knowledge from different disciplines. Working with different colleagues at different times is thus more the rule than the exception. Good staff interaction and the small scale of our office create a pleasant and
HEC charges commercial rates and pays salaries in line with market rates for consultancy. There are various opportunities for training and personal development. We also pay due attention to knowledge management within the organisation.
The Centre of Expertise offers the following services:
Strategic advisory services
The golden rule for advisory services is success = quality x acceptance. That means that advisors need to be well-versed in both the subject matter and the process in order to reach a successful conclusion. A great deal of attention is given to competences within HEC and these are explicitly taken into account in the composition of the advice teams.
Since our advisory work often covers complex administrative and organisational processes we do not have a hard and fast approach to providing advice. Advisors will adopt the approach best suited to the requirements of the client.
However, we do have reference guidelines for the advisory procedure (intake, execution and completion), and have developed a series of model scenarios with discussion and reference models commonly used within the framework of government
We have also developed our own methodologies for a number of specific strategic issues, such as the HEC '5+2'-model for architectural issues.
Auditing
We carry out a wide variety of audits and evaluations. Audits may focus on a system (such as the auditing of a plan, an
We are not restricted to ex-post audits and evaluations: in fact we more often carry out ex-ante evaluations, including risk analyses.
Our audits and evaluations are always based on an explicit set of criteria which provide a framework for evaluation. This framework is tailored to the specific case, based on an analysis of the content and context of the request for advice.
The findings of our investigations need to provide evidence to support our conclusions, and the evidence must be based on hard facts. For this reason we verify our findings with the parties concerned (are they correct?) and validate them with the client (do they play a part in the evaluation?).
When it comes to formulating conclusions, the findings are tested against the evaluation criteria. Subsequently recommendations are drawn up which include specific suggestions for further action to be taken by the client. Our audit or evaluation would not be complete if it merely provided an assessment of the situation: we also provide advice and recommendations for specific improvements, and ways in which they can be introduced.
HEC has drawn up its own internal handbook of guidelines for auditors, explaining procedures for confidentiality, hearing both sides in a dispute, etc.
Management
HEC employs a number of advisors who are specialists in programme, project and interim management.
These managers have experience of working in political-administrative environments and are accustomed to the complex issues arising at the interfaces of policy, organisation and ICT.
Education and training
Every year the Expertise Centre carries out a large number of advisory and management assignments in the public sector. The knowledge and experience we have built up is processed into curricula for training programmes.
The accumulated knowledge relates mainly to best practices: do’s and don'ts, success and failure factors, etc. Case studies relating to (actual) situations and problems are also developed for training courses.
The course material developed by HEC is subject to quality control in the form of internal reviews. Training modules offered as part of the course for Master of Public Information Management are also tested against the standards of the TiasNimbas Business School and the Erasmus Academy.
The Centre of Expertise
Visiting address:
Van de Spiegelstraat 12
2518 ET The Hague
Postal address:
PO Box 18607
2502 EP The Hague
The Netherlands
Telephonenumber: +31 70 351 49 97
Faxnumber: +31 70 351 52 82
Email: info@hec.nl
