Government & open data
NIPV
The Netherlands Institute for Public Safety is an independent administrative body whose tasks are laid down in articles 68, 69 and 70 of the Safety Regions Act. Those tasks fall into four lines: research, education, information provision and support. The institute works for the twenty-five Dutch safety regions and, on their behalf, collates, processes and publishes current figures on safety themes. Its knowledge base holds handbooks, guidance documents, protocols, sector directives, manuals and information sheets on fire services, crisis management and risk management.
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BEVER — Selected documents
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What this source does not give you
An institute document is not a statutory rule. Even a protocol — which the institute expressly calls prescriptive — derives its force from agreement within the sector, not from legislation; the powers and duties themselves sit in the Safety Regions Act and subordinate decrees. And the knowledge base is national in design: how an individual safety region has arranged matters in its own crisis plan is not in there.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a handbook, a guidance document and a protocol?
- The institute distinguishes them by the status they claim. Handbooks are informative: they set out facts and foundations — the handbook on incident response on water and the C2000 fire-service handbook are examples. Guidance documents are advisory: they record an organisational or applied methodology. Protocols are prescriptive, intended to ensure action follows the stipulated method. Anyone citing a document does well to name the category, because they do not carry equal weight.
- What exactly do the publications cover?
- The research field is broad: fire safety, crisis management, hazardous substances and CBRN, infectious-disease control, critical infrastructure, digital resilience and climate safety, with an alphabetical topic list running to more than a hundred entries. In the knowledge base that translates into attention cards (on solar panels and on rail, for instance), guidance on victim care and on airport crisis management, risk-inventory manuals for flood areas, tunnels and event locations, sector directives on asbestos incidents and on optical warning signals, and information sheets on the energy transition and the circular economy.
- What figures does the institute publish about the safety regions?
- The institute issues core figures on the safety regions and, on behalf of the twenty-five regions, collates, processes and publishes current data on relevant safety themes. That makes it the place for national comparisons — response times, incident counts, capacity — and equally the reason to be careful about extrapolating a national average to a single region.
- Why is the institute not one of the ministerial portals?
- Because it is neither a ministry nor an implementing body with decision-making powers, but an independent administrative body with a knowledge remit: research, education, information provision and support for the safety regions. It therefore publishes no policy rules by which decisions are taken — the regions and the ministry do that — but the professional knowledge those decisions rest on.