Now that the recovery operation after the benefits affair is in full swing, the cabinet wants to intervene. The plan is now roughly to pay out fixed amounts per type of damage.
Because after the surcharge affair itself, the handling is now also going wrong. In particular, assessing exactly who has suffered what damage – such as the loss of a house or missing out on a study – is so time-consuming that files cannot be closed until 2025.
The cabinet now wants to open a second route for victims to claim their damages. The ‘starting point’ is a ‘damages framework with fixed amounts’. A test was done with this and it went something like this: victims filled in a long list of questions about what their life was like before the affair, what happened afterwards (loss of home, job, study) and what their vision is for the future. That information was then fed into a calculation model and the computer produced a proposal within hours. Parents can then agree to this.
It is not yet known exactly what amounts will roll out per ‘type’ of damage.
This route is a choice for the parents in addition to the treatment by the Actual Damage Committee, which will also continue to exist. He looks at situations in more detail, but that also takes a long time. There are now 1400 parents in that process, but there are only 5 proposals per week for the settlement.
The advantage, according to State Secretary Aukje de Vries (Allocations, VVD), is that parents do not have to demonstrate ‘no causality’, so no hard connection with the affair. This reduces the burden of proof on parents. For them it felt like they had to prove their suffering. Now we look at what happened, the period and whether a connection can be made.”
According to De Vries, this means that parents can be helped more quickly. “And I understand that. They want to make a point, to make a new start. We think this will help.”
The fact that the cabinet has opted for this new route also shows that the need is great: a similar route has been considered before, but there was a fear that judges would disapprove. After all, the law prescribes that there must be a connection between damage and compensation, especially when paying out tax money. The government is not yet entirely convinced about this. It is still being examined whether the route is ‘feasible’ and what it will cost. “But I have faith in it,” says De Vries.
Up to and including April 2023, 62,300 people have reported as potentially affected. A total of 29,400 parents have been recognized as victims, they will immediately receive 30,000 euros. Some believe that they are entitled to more, so the handling of these cases has been very slow so far. The government so far assumes that it will take until 2025 to complete 57,000 cases.
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