Figures on actual fraud hardly played a role in the fraud policy that was established during the Rutte I cabinet. The government did everything it could to reduce benefit fraud by severely punishing abuse, even if the applicant was not aware of any wrongdoing. There was no clear substantiation that this approach would work.
Civil servants and ministers paint this picture during the second week of interrogations by the parliamentary inquiry committee that is investigating the government’s fraud policy and services. The government had set itself a tough approach as its mission in advance. Critical voices from civil servants, municipalities and the Council of State were pushed aside.
Also read: The House of Representatives wants to know from Rutte and others: how could fraud policy go off the rails so much?
The interrogation on Wednesday of Henk Kamp (VVD), who as Minister of Social Affairs oversaw the new fraud law, was telling. His officials had told him at the start of his ministership that 90 to 96 percent of benefit recipients did comply with the rules. Kamp questioned that claim, and has now done so again. “They express the image of the civil servants,” he said about the numbers. According to Kamp, the percentages were “contrary to what is going on in the country.”
If figures were decisive, they were the figures from opinion surveys that showed that many Dutch people thought fraud was a problem. Or it was the cold amounts from the budget, because stricter detection and punishment of fraud was also seen in Rutte I’s coalition agreement as a favorable contribution to the state treasury. 180 million euros annually, to be precise.
Derailed fraud hunt
One of the big questions hanging over the interrogations is this: did the protagonists make active choices? Or did they merely follow in the wake of their predecessors, taking one step further into the ravine of the derailed fraud hunt that culminated in the Benefits Scandal?
Last week, outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) had explicitly placed himself in the second category. Rutte, who was asked about his time as State Secretary for Social Affairs at the beginning of the century, emphasized that his strict fraud measures were in fact built on reports warning of fraud and the political preparatory work of previous cabinets.
This week’s hearings make it very clear that the strict fraud policy was indeed an accumulation of political choices. Cabinets could have done things differently, there were alarming signals from various quarters, but they chose to continue with the increasingly tough approach.
The guiding idea behind the new approach was the idea that benefit recipients had to ensure that they had arranged their affairs properly. If they were not properly informed of the rules or did not provide new information in a timely manner, for example as a result of receiving benefits for too long, this would from now on be punished. “The responsibility to inform you lies with the applicant,” Kamp said. “The individual who asks something from the government must also contribute something.”
Kamp called combating fraud the main priority of his ministry of Social Affairs, in addition to raising the state pension age. He worked together with his state secretary and party colleague Paul de Krom, who was also interrogated by the committee on Wednesday.
De Krom and Kamp were keen to change the image of two overly strict VVD members on Social Affairs. Fraud was a problem that was acute and growing, they argued, and that had to be combated quickly. Kamp had heard that perhaps a billion euros worth of fraud could be detected. “One of the detectives told me: I was sitting in the living room with a woman who was listed as a single parent, when a child came in and asked: ‘Mommy, why is daddy in the attic?’” said De Krom. “Those kinds of cases are what it’s all about.”
The two ministers could not imagine that the approach would affect many people who were faced with heavy fines due to a mistake. Municipalities and implementing organizations had enough room for this, they both thought. On the contrary, was their reasoning: by imposing stricter punishments, the government could keep the social system afloat in times of austerity.
It rained warnings
Rutte I did not have to look for support for stricter penalties for benefit fraud. There was broad political support for such a policy, even outside the right-wing coalition, a point that Rutte, De Krom and Kamp repeatedly emphasized.
At the same time, warnings poured in during and after the introduction of the fraud law. The Council of State issued a negative advice. Municipalities feared the feasibility and expected that enforcement would be so complicated that it would cost more money than it would generate. And the Ombudsman already counted a large group of distressing cases in 2014.
For example, people with a burnout or depression, a divorce or a deceased partner could still be severely punished as a result of the standard fines if they forgot to stop an allowance or social assistance benefit. The space for compassion promised by De Krom and Kamp was rarely available in practice. In fact, the committee of inquiry noted in Kamp’s interrogation: although the scope to deviate from the standard fine was announced in the text of the law itself, it was explicitly made impossible in its legal elaboration.
“With all due respect to your researchers, I cannot imagine that at all,” said Kamp when confronted with this. It led to yet another stalemate with the committee of inquiry, which noted with increasing annoyance that Kamp did not remember things.
A day earlier it had already become clear that Kamp had also viewed his own officials with more than mild skepticism. At that time, former civil servant Rob Krug, who worked under Kamp at the Ministry of Social Affairs, had already told how the minister ignored his department’s compliance percentages. “Kamp didn’t believe it,” said Krug. “If it has been determined with all available data what it is, and the minister thinks not, then everyone has their own truth.”
A version of this article also appeared in the September 14, 2023 newspaper.