News item | 09-02-2024 | 2:30 PM
Arrive at one simplified scheme with one legal framework. According to an official exploration by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW), the Allowances Service, the SVB and the Ministry of Finance, this is an important step to make the system of child arrangements (child benefit and child-related budget) simpler, more secure and more predictable for parents. to make. In this way, the government can improve financial support for families. Parents, behavioral experts and other stakeholders are also involved in the exploration.
The government wants to support parents and families financially to ensure that all children can develop optimally and so that as few children as possible grow up in poverty. This is currently done, among other things, through child benefit and the child-related budget. Although this works well for many parents, some parents experience the combination of the arrangements as complicated and unpredictable. The risk of a possible refund means that some parents choose not to use the child budget in advance. Partly for this reason, options have been examined to improve the child arrangements.
Minister Van Gennip: “The family is the starting point of life. Within your family you should feel safe, heard and, above all, loved. However, this is not always the case. Financial challenges cause stress or worse, with all its consequences. That is why it is important to support parents and families. Ideally, this should be done as easily and accessible as possible, so that everyone who is entitled to it can use it. I would like to thank everyone involved for their efforts. There is now important preliminary work for a simple and accessible system for child arrangements and family policy that the next cabinet can build on.”
One regulation, one legal framework
Looking at the needs of parents, but also the desire to simplify the benefits system, the official study concludes that an important first step towards a structural improvement lies in arriving at one simplified scheme with one legal framework. This makes it less complicated for parents and provides more security. In the exploration, variants were elaborated in broad terms. A scheme that is independent of a person’s income, an income-related scheme or a variant with a basic amount and an income-related supplement. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.
An income-independent arrangement is the simplest for parents and executors. Parents have certainty about the amount they receive and the risk of refunds is low. At the same time, this offers less room to take the financial situation of families into account. Households with lower incomes have a greater interest in financial support than households with higher incomes.
For the variant with an income-related scheme, two options were considered. A fully income-related scheme and a scheme with a basic amount for all parents with an additional income-related increase for some parents. The first option offers support that is tailored as much as possible to a family’s financial situation. At the same time, parents have to put more effort into an application after a change in income. The second option offers more security, but – depending on the amount of the basic amount – provides less targeted financial support.
The ultimate choice for a simple and more predictable system of child arrangements must be viewed together with the ‘Future Allowance System’ trajectory and the financing system for childcare (this report was also shared with the House of Representatives today). By doing this in conjunction, the organization of the Dutch social security system, benefits and income policy can be examined broadly. This also simplifies the service and implementation for parents who work across the border and parents who work in the Netherlands but do not live in the Netherlands.