ANP parents and journalists at one of the first debates in the House of Representatives, in 2019
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 17:05
Since this week, parents can no longer register as new victims in the Benefits Affair. After more than three years, the handling of the affair is now in new waters.
That water is anything but calm. Tens of thousands of people are still waiting for their files to be assessed. The Ministry of Finance is still experimenting with ways to handle their claims as best as possible.
The costs of the so-called recovery operation were estimated at 310 million almost four years ago. The counter now stands at more than 7.2 billion euros and the end is not yet in sight.
Where did that money go? And to what extent did it reach parents?
The implementation organization started small
In 2020, the Ministry of Finance started setting up a crisis organization to help affected parents. The idea at the time was that victims would be helped quickly.
But when then State Secretary Van Huffelen announced that parents would receive 30,000 euros in compensation after an initial test, the number of registrations quickly increased: from 9,200 to 17,800 in two months.
Budget also increased rapidly
Many extra people were needed to speak to all those parents and assess their files. And this is reflected in the budget: in April 2021, the counter stood at more than 1.7 billion euros.
The following month, the cabinet also decided to take over private debts from victims, the estimated costs at that time were almost 370 million. The total budget that year already amounted to more than 5 billion euros.
How the budget for the recovery operation increased in recent years:
NOS
In the following years, the number of schemes expanded rapidly: for example, victims could also claim legal assistance and help from the municipality. It was also decided that ex-partners and 80,000 children are entitled to compensation.
In the meantime, the queue of parents awaiting the processing of their files grew. At the same time, experiments were started to accelerate the handling of non-material damage, including through a settlement agreement.
Three quarters of external staff
As a result of all these measures, even more people have started working for the Recovery Allowance Implementation Organization (UHT), which carries out the recovery operation. About three-quarters of them are hired externally, which costs on average twice as much as permanent staff.
This is partly because employees who were involved in the benefits affair are in principle not allowed to work within the UHT. According to the Ministry of Finance, people also had to be arranged quickly, which made external hiring an obvious choice.
NOS
All kinds of organizations and companies have been called in to help with the implementation. This concerns, for example, large consultancy companies such as Andersson Eiffers Felix and Boston Consulting Group, but also the Foundation for (Equal) Worthy Recovery of Princess Laurentien. This year, the foundation received 4.5 million euros to implement a new scheme for non-material damage.
All in all, 30 percent of the expenditure for the recovery operation went to the equipment costs: the people who implement the schemes.
These are the most important cost items of the recovery operation.
NOS
It is difficult to say whether 30 percent in equipment costs is a lot. “It is certainly not common in the government sector,” says Jesse van der Geest, who researches taxes at Tilburg University. “On average, within the national government, less than 5 percent of total expenditure goes to implementation.”
According to Van der Geest, the recovery operation cannot actually be compared with the average within the national government. This is because other schemes, such as the AOW, WW and taxation, are much simpler to implement.
“The more customization you apply, the more expensive it becomes,” says Maarten Allers, professor of Economics of Decentralized Governments. “New schemes also cause more costs. It also costs more if changes are implemented again during the implementation of a scheme.”
The experts are therefore not surprised that 30 percent of all costs went to implementation. However, the costs of external hiring have been relatively high. “Although some external hiring seems logical to me given the complexity, it probably could have been cheaper if there had been more permanent staff,” says Van der Geest.
So far, 67,584 parents have registered, the final number will be announced later. A majority of the House of Representatives asked to keep the counter open longer, but according to State Secretary De Vries, that was not an option. According to her, the implementation of the recovery operation would be even more difficult and other parents would have to wait longer. Only in exceptional cases can people still report.
2024-01-06 16:05:11
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