The State Council is scathing about the allowance approach: slow, complicated and actually leads to inequality

The way the government wants to fix the subsidy scandal is not good. It is too slow, too complex and leads to legal inequality, while the whole process is aimed at restoring badly damaged confidence in the actions of the government.

This is evidenced by the urgent advice of the State Council to have Trouw in her hands. The State Council wrote that the full recovery process for the childcare subsidy issue is “so complicated” that the “intended speed of recovery” is out of sight. Moreover, the current approach leads to “imbalances and inequality of treatment among victims”. This could also ensure that public support for the plan is undermined, the State Council says in this as yet unpublished advice.

False expectations and no structural solutions

The most affected parents wouldn’t be surprised. At the end of last year, the Cabinet introduced the Catshuis arrangement, according to which parents who were wrongly accused of fraud receive 30 thousand euros. But its application was discontinued. The State Council cites the example of parents who have been damaged by 1,500 euros and who receive 30,000 euros and streak through all their debts, while parents with more serious problems are not eligible for this faster settlement and have to wait, not knowing how long. will take. to continue. Expectations were raised among the victims that the government could not fulfill.

According to the State Council, the course of action taken is also hampering the prospects for more “structural solutions”. This applies to dealing with all the problems of the past and for reviewing the entire allowance system. Everyone agrees that it should be different in terms of the payment of allowances in the future.

The legal basis is missing

The Council of State is the highest advisory body in the Council of Ministers. In this advisory report, he evaluates legislative proposals and tax regulations by which the government wishes to give the approach taken a legal basis. Most of the measures are already being implemented. And this leads, therefore, to a dilemma: should the government embed this approach in the laws, which Finance Minister Van Ovelen has already concluded that it cannot continue in this way? But if the government does not do this, it will continue with the far-reaching policies of citizens, while the legitimate legal basis for democracy is missing.

The government is in a hurry. The allowance issue approach has been severely criticized. Cabinet should also soon work out arrangements for other groups of victims, such as children of beneficiary parents, former partners of victims and victims of fraud approaches to obtain other benefits.

More than a thousand children removed from their homes

It was revealed last week that more than a thousand children of beneficiary parents were evicted from their homes in 2015-2020 due to problems. The same allowance issue has been going on for much longer. Only in January did the government drop the case, which a parliamentary inquiry called an “unprecedented injustice”.

Municipalities that already have to implement the schemes fear that the new compensation schemes will be futile because too many people will sign up. There is money: the government saved billions for the payback.

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The Ombudsman is sounding the alarm – handling the allowance issue is going completely wrong

The National Ombudsman does not believe that the system that caused the misery of the allowances can now provide a solution. Demands special attention to the children of the victims.