There will be no agreement this year on youth welfare reforms. Talks between the government, municipalities and youth care providers have stalled again in the area of money, says State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen (Public Health).
The hours of consultation on the reform plans returned on Thursday. Van Ooijen hoped the outline of the deal would be there before Christmas. “Unfortunately we need more time,” he wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives. Talks will continue in January.
Reforms are needed because youth welfare has stalled. There is a significant shortage of staff, the workload is high and the rates for the work performed are too low. Employees spend a lot of time on administration and often have too many clients, so they have too little time for orientation. This comes at the expense of care for vulnerable children and their parents.
The waiting lists are just getting longer. The consequences of the problems will also increase if the aid is not provided in time, as the Chamber has long warned.
According to Van Ooijen, there are “firm proposals on the table that will have a major impact on the parties involved”. Now it seems that this needs to be discussed further.
Talks have stalled in particular between the government and municipalities, which have not yet reached an agreement “on financial sustainability”. The government has been giving municipalities funds for youth welfare since 2015. Municipalities say this is not enough, also because the demand for youth welfare is increasing.
The cabinet already wants to include the savings in the budget, while municipalities first want to wait and see if the planned measures will actually lead to savings. Youth care providers complain that municipalities have many different contractual requirements.
