‘Attention to institutional racism within the supervision of the Tax and Customs Administration and Benefits’ | news item

News item | 30-05-2022 | 15:00

State Secretary van Rij: “The examples found in the selection of intensive supervision are unacceptable. Institutional racism cannot and should not exist in our society. Following the conclusions of the PwC reports, I am very much aware that disadvantages of population groups could take various forms. Even when it was not the intention to profile a population group, people may have been treated differently on the basis of their origin or other characteristics such as nationality, age and gender. Both we and the tax authorities want to rule that out in the future. Even if there is no ideology that divides people into races, that does not make the examples found any less painful.”

The Secretary of State continues: “Over the past few months I have come to know many employees all over the country in various conversations and during working visits as dedicated colleagues from different backgrounds who decry any form of discrimination and racism, and I know and see that this feeling is widely shared. and that good steps have already been taken in recent years.”

The question of whether there was (institutional) racism or discrimination arose very understandably after the conclusions of the five investigations that PwC conducted at the request of the cabinet into the use of the FSV at the tax authorities. However, it is also a difficult question to answer. Discrimination is a legally anchored concept with a clearly specific burden of proof. There are different definitions of racism in society. As reported by the government in a letter to the House of Representatives on 14 December 2021, the Institute of Human Rights has developed an assessment framework for this under the heading ‘institutional racism’, which pays attention to the work of implementing organizations.

Until the disentanglement, allowances were an integral part of the Tax Authorities. The question about institutional racism therefore also applies to Allowances. The working method within Benefits could have resulted in different groups of citizens having a greater chance of being selected for a manual assessment, thus leading to an unintended inequality in treatment between people. This applied, among other things, to Dutch people with low incomes and single people, but also to people of other nationalities, without a sound basis for this.

At the same time, risk selection in supervision remains necessary. Risk profiles can be used to distinguish between groups of citizens in order to determine where additional supervision is required. Government organizations using risk profiles should be aware that this distinction carries the risk of discrimination. Discrimination is and will remain prohibited, but not every distinction is discriminatory if there is a justification for it.

More awareness of the Tax and Customs Administration and Allowances

Combating discrimination and institutional racism in the Netherlands is one of the government’s spearheads. The coalition agreement states that institutional racism has no place in our society and that government organizations must set a good example in this regard. Together with the Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom Relations (BZK), various actions with a learning approach are therefore chosen to prevent repetition. Attention is paid to the working methods and processes as well as to the employees of the Tax and Customs Administration and Allowances. For example, the services examine which safeguards are necessary to guarantee the legality and transparency of the risk selection. This year the framework will be established against which processes can be tested.

Supervision is and remains people’s work. To ensure that managers and employees better recognize this theme, the subject of “discrimination and racism” is given an explicit place within the culture and leadership trajectory of the Tax and Customs Administration and Allowances. Collaboration is sought with the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights. In addition, moral consultations are held with management and employees on the basis of the examples found. Case positions and ethical dilemmas in supervision are also discussed in groups. Attention is paid to conscious and unconscious prejudices.

Other lists

The letter to parliament also discusses the inventory of applications and lists with nationality and/or risk or fraud signals in mailboxes, personal environments or areas of cooperation of employees of the Tax and Customs Administration. This has been sought from 2020 in response to the developments surrounding the FSV. Of the 119 files that met the criteria, there is a high probability (‘high risk’) for 39 lists that the list has led to undue consequences for citizens. This means that it is not yet clear whether there have actually been consequences and to what extent these have been detrimental to citizens. An investigation is currently underway to determine whether these lists have had undue consequences for citizens and what the appropriate solution is.

What is clear is that the names of some of these lists raise questions. The names of some lists contain terms such as ‘criminals’ and there are three files named after a nationality (Bulgarian) and one after a population group (Antillean). In certain cases, the use of a list of nationality data may be allowed, if the appropriate criteria are met. In 2019, however, it was decided to no longer use nationality in the enforcement of the Tax Authorities, unless there is an explicit sound basis for this. The lists in question predate this decision.

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concepts

Institutional racism (from the vision paper “Institutional racism: towards a human rights approach” of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights)

“Institutional racism is typically about ingrained, structural mechanisms, procedures, habits or forms of behaviour, which can appear in many different forms and often cause a disadvantage in an indirect, sometimes difficult to recognize way for certain groups of people on the basis of their origin.” […] “The word ‘institutional’ can have a connotation of ‘institutionalized’, in the sense that racism has been deliberately put into an organization or domain by something or someone, but it doesn’t have to be. The word institutional simply says that racism is present in the institutions. And within organizations or domains, ‘institutional’ means more than isolated racist or discriminatory incidents.” […] “In concrete terms, this can involve explicit racist language or racially motivated exclusion in the workplace, but more often it concerns less overt and deliberately discriminatory behaviour.” […] The unconscious and indirect nature of the deprivation is precisely what makes institutional forms of discrimination so difficult to recognize and tackle.”

Institutional Racism (National Coordinator Against Discrimination and Racism)

“Institutional racism exists when policies and written and unwritten rules of institutions or organizations lead to unequal treatment based on origin, ethnicity or religion.”

Racism (from the vision paper “Institutional racism: towards a human rights approach” of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights)

“The term ‘racism’ stands for an ideology or theory that divides people into ‘races’, assuming the superiority of one racial group over another.”

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