The caretaker cabinet reserves another 1 billion euros to compensate more than a hundred thousand extra victims in the Allowance Affair. It concerns the children and ex-partners of victims of the parents and people who ran into problems with allowances other than the childcare allowance, such as the housing allowance or health care allowance.
Alexandra van Huffelen (D66), the State Secretary for the benefits file, announced the new regulations on Friday afternoon after the Council of Ministers. The House of Representatives may participate in the discussions before the regulations are final. Execution could start in 2022 at the earliest.
Also read: Everyone gets caught up in the allowance maze
Last year, the cabinet already promised that all affected parents would be compensated with at least 30,000 euros, the so-called Catshuis arrangement. At the end of September, 47,000 parents had already applied for this, although not all applications are actually approved.
With the new regulation, the government has an even larger group in mind. Van Huffelen assumes that 95,000 children are eligible for compensation, just like seven to ten thousand ex-partners. The government believes that the victims with other benefits would be 22,000 victims, about half of whom are already victims in the childcare allowance affair.
As with the Catshuis scheme, this concerns a standard amount for those affected, although it is less than 30,000 euros. For example, the affected children will receive 2,000 to 10,000 euros in the cabinet plan, depending on their age.
Error Recurrence
The compensation immediately met with fierce criticism from the municipalities, which play an important role in implementation and debt counseling. The Tax and Customs Administration also has great concerns about the plans of the cabinet in advance.
The executors’ fear is that the compensation will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare for parents and executors. By offering the same amount to all those affected, some will soon receive a lot of money, they say, and another group will receive too little. Moreover, the supply can lead to an enormous extra influx, which makes it questionable whether the Tax and Customs Administration can handle this. The Dutch Association for Municipalities (VNG) is critical of the plan and speaks in response of a scheme that “does more harm than good”.
The Council of State also has major doubts about the government’s approach to date, according to an advice issued last week via NRC leaked out. According to the Council, the cabinet has “timely made promises that aroused expectations among the victims, while the recovery operation has become too complex”, as a result of which “the intended speed of recovery is increasingly out of sight”.
The Catshuis regulation is always an example of what not to do. This should have speeded up the process, but now appears to have a delaying effect. The number of applications was more than double than expected. Thousands of parents are still waiting for a verdict, as it turned out at the end of September. Even more parents have received money, but they want full access to their file and possibly more compensation.
For only 546 parents, the offer of 30,000 euros was immediately enough to complete their case. Van Huffelen came under a lot of criticism last year that the Catshuis scheme was presented to the parents without consulting parliament. As a result, the House of Representatives was sidelined. Now the state secretary wants to work less hurriedly, she said. “In order to really help, the implementation must be well prepared. That takes time. That is an important lesson we have learned.”
But, she also stated: “It is important to speed up this as much as possible, because all victims deserve the help and support they need.”
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