The proposals for adjustments to the social assistance fine represent a small improvement for ‘social assistance fraudsters’. Lawyers are also moderately positive. At the same time, they do not go far enough and many problems will continue to occur, says the National Client Council on work and income.
There is now broad support for adjusting the fine and reclaiming assistance from fraudsters must change, says the majority of the House of Representatives. The coalition parties CDA, D66 and the ChristenUnie have today two different solutions brought outside.
Amma Asante of the National Client Council calls it a start: “No matter how beautiful these initiatives are, they ignore the core of the problem. It will probably help a little, but the problem that you cannot get by on welfare will remain. The low welfare almost forces people to ask friends, acquaintances and relatives for help. “
The law requires recipients of social assistance to report gifts and income. This so-called obligation to provide information is strict: according to the law, the municipality must reclaim assistance if you receive something as a gift or earn extra money, but do not report it.
Bulgarenfraude
For example, Raïsa (last name known to the editors) was fined and reclaimed because she had not reported help from her father. “My children took up kickboxing. Since the Youth Fund only pays the membership fee, my father transferred money for sportswear, protection and boxing gloves,” says the single mother. “That is one of the amounts for which I was fined. After almost a year of paying off that fine and reclaiming it.”
“The law is so strict due to the Bulgarians fraud of a few years ago,” explains lawyer Thomas Sanders of AKD Benelux Lawyers. In 2013 it came to light that scammers Bulgarians to the Netherlands brought. They had to register with a municipality and open a bank account so the fraudsters could apply for benefits on their behalf and thus defraud the state.
“Everyone was very angry about that, and then this legislation was written. The thought was: ‘anyone who does not report something has something to hide.’ But that is of course not the case: people make mistakes, and that was not taken into account at the time. kept. “
Panic football
That sentiment has now turned, partly due to the childcare allowance affair. In 2013 the CDA, ChristenUnie and D66 voted in favor of the current Participation Act; Meanwhile, the coalition parties are overlapping with proposals to fix the law. “There must be room for congregations to be a little more merciful”, explained the ChristenUnie in the Radio 1 Journal.
That party wants to scrap the mandatory fine for social assistance fraudsters. D66 and the CDA propose to keep the fine, but to make the recovery of previously paid assistance optional.
“The proposal from CDA and D66 is very similar to panic football”, says Sanders. “Then you get that the lady in Wijdemeren does not have to pay back thousands of euros, but still receives a fine. That does not seem very reasonable to me. The proposal of the ChristenUnie offers a good perspective in that respect because the mandatory fine is deleted. “
Exception
There are now also exceptions where reclaiming is not mandatory. But that threshold is high. “There must then be unacceptable financial or social consequences,” explains Sanders. “Being out on the street alone is not enough; just being out on the street when you are seriously ill, for example, is considered an ‘urgent reason’.” The amendment that the House is now proposing would give municipalities, but also judges, more room to deviate.
Between 2013 and 2018, there have been nearly 6,000 rulings by administrative judges on Participation Act recoveries. About 95 percent of the cases were mandatory recoveries for breach of the duty to provide information.
Of all the people who appealed to the court for the exception, 772 in total, none succeeded. “On appeal, my lawyer reduced the fine and the recovery, but I still had to pay it,” says Raïsa. “Last year I paid off about 52 euros a month. I can really feel that: normally I do my shopping for almost a week.”
Tailor-made municipalities
If people entitled to social assistance do report extra earnings and gifts, municipalities now also have the space to be merciful. How this is handled differs per municipality.
In Amsterdam, for example, you can receive up to 1200 euros per year in gifts. “At Christmas I received money from my little brother for my daughter’s Christmas present. Then I immediately called the municipality,” says Raïsa. Yet she still finds it exciting: “It feels like you are under a microscope. The lady of the municipality I spoke to knew nothing about it; the municipality would call me back within two days. Five days have passed and I have not heard anything yet. I’m going to call again on Monday just to be sure. I’m just afraid to accept help. “
Rather than just more room for exceptions, Asante would like to see a generic change. “You could increase social assistance benefits. But it would also help if the cabinet automatically pays out all the extras that minimums can help. Now those extras are often behind complicated forms and application procedures. The whole system scares people off.” , soon I’ll make a mistake, “we hear a lot.”
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