In processes in which the government wants to repair the damage suffered by victims, for example in the Surcharge Affair and the damage caused by earthquakes in Groningen, it makes the same mistakes again and again. For example, too little attention is paid to the needs of those affected and no lessons are learned from previous recovery operations. The National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen writes this in an email report published on Tuesday, for which he investigated ten recovery processes. “The shaky confidence in the government is further eroding with recovery processes.”
In the report, the ombudsman concludes that the government often gives priority to quick action in recovery processes, but in doing so it ignores the needs of those affected. Government agencies almost never consult victims and interest groups in advance to ask what they might need, that is determined ‘from above’. During the process itself, there is often little personal contact, although according to the ombudsman this is important. In addition, victims often do not get the simple and fast process they want, because the government spends a lot of time on bureaucratic tasks, such as accountability and control.
Van Zutphen also concludes that too little attention is paid to experiences from previous recovery operations, even though they can often be useful. “Government agencies keep reinventing the wheel,” writes the ombudsman. That is why he advocates a knowledge network that is accessible to all government agencies, experts and interest groups involved. They must all have access to the available information and expertise about providing recovery.
A disaster after the disaster
In his investigation, the ombudsman analyzed ten major recovery operations, both ongoing and completed. In addition to the surcharges affair and gas extraction in Groningen, this involved the fireworks disaster in Enschede, the floods in Limburg, the actions of Dutchbat III in Srebrenica, construction damage due to the construction of the North/South line in Amsterdam, Chrome-6 in Defense, the arrangement with personal budget, the Backpay benefit scheme and Q fever. He also looked at his own actions, because he also plays or played a role in five of these processes.
His conclusions are “disastrous,” the ombudsman writes, because “some citizens in recovery processes become even more damaged than they already were because the recovery process is inadequate in all kinds of ways.” In that case, he says, “disaster follows disaster.”
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