Benefits desk becomes a refuge for all kinds of problem cases | Inland

In recent months, in particular, the proportion of people who are not eligible for compensation has risen sharply. In October and November, more than three quarters of applications were rejected. In total, the Recovery Allowance Implementation Operation (UHT) has now processed 40,000 applications for the 30,000 euro allowance that each parent actually affected receives. Of these, about four in ten were rejected.

Pocket money

It does not mean that all fortune seekers come to the counter who just try to get a bag of money, says outgoing State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen (Finance). “Those people are there too,” she admits, but her ministry has no idea how many they are.

According to the State Secretary, this mainly concerns people who have problems that do not necessarily arise from the scandal with the childcare allowance. Van Huffelen: “These are people who have large debts, who may have been duped by other allowances. Those people also need help, but they cannot be helped by us and our organization.”

Stuck

The Ministry of Finance therefore tries to guide these people further, and to send them to organizations that can help them, such as the municipality. In this way, the counter of the allowance scandal also becomes a refuge for people who have come into trouble with the government in some other way: “They hope to draw attention to their problems by reporting to us,” says Van Huffelen.

In addition, almost a year after the announcement of the ‘Catshuis scheme’, in which every victim will receive 30,000 euros unconditionally, people are still reporting who have actually been duped, Van Huffelen is also surprised. She finds it ‘sometimes unimaginable’ that after all the media attention for the scandal that caused the fall of the cabinet at the beginning of this year, people are only now submitting a request. According to her, this concerns, for example, people who ‘have a fear of reporting’ or ‘do not have a good command of the language’.

Because the recovery of the affair is going much slower and more difficult than the cabinet originally envisioned, the process is now partly being overhauled. The focus is changing, the State Secretary explains: “It can be done faster for the parents who are most affected.” They now receive ‘earlier and more attention’. In addition, Van Huffelen is committed to ‘more personal attention’ and ‘attention to emotional help’.

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