In 2021, a total of around 3.5 billion euros in childcare allowance will be paid. This was revealed on Monday from figures from Statistics Netherlands. In total, 668,000 parents received an allowance last year to be able to bring more than 1.07 million children to childcare.
This means that both the number of parents who have received benefits and the number of children who have been taken to childcare are slightly higher than two years ago.
Last year, parents received an average of 5,230 euros per year in childcare allowance. That is 250 euros more than the year before. This concerns both children in out-of-school care and children in day care.
There has been a lot of talk about the childcare allowance in recent years. A lot has gone wrong in the past when paying the allowances. In a number of cases, parents had to repay a large part of the allowances at once, while they were unable to do so.
The benefits scandal caused a lot of problems for these families. The cabinet even resigned at the beginning of last year because of the affair.
Serious plans to abolish surcharge
To avoid similar problems in the future, there are serious plans to abolish childcare allowance in a few years. The financing of reception places must also be arranged in a different way.
The Information Center for Child Care (ICKO) said last week to NU.nl to fear that the reception will become much more expensive as a result. This is because there are major staff shortages and companies have to invest in additional reception locations. ICKO therefore questions the government’s plan to make childcare free.
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