Cabinet relaxes rules on unjustified benefits

From now on, the government will be more flexible with regard to benefits that may have been obtained incorrectly. Under newly announced rules, recipients of AOW, WW or social assistance no longer have to repay benefits after five years if they were paid too high or wrongly, while the term was previously twenty years. Ministers Karien van Gennip (Social Affairs, CDA) and Carola Schouten (Poverty Policy, ChristenUnie) want to start from trust: they use the principle “that most people want to do the right thing”, they wrote to the House of Representatives on Monday.

Also read: Minister Schouten wants the social assistance rules to be enforced more flexibly

‘Better distribute the burden’

The new policy means that authorities do not immediately fine in the event of violations, but can also first opt ​​for a warning. About the current benefit regime, the ministers write that citizens ‘must be able to demonstrate for a longer period that they are entitled to benefits’. They now want to “distribute that burden better between government and citizens”. That is why the first five years of an overpayment of social assistance will henceforth be ‘at the expense and risk of the government’.

Van Gennip and Schouten note that within the current rules people ‘sometimes commit an offense because they are unable to do anything else’. As an example they cite a change in the family composition reported too late, for example due to a death. In such a situation, the authorities must henceforth start from ‘the assumption that someone does not willfully abuse’ a benefit.

The authorities should only investigate further if there are indications of a deliberate violation. After all, according to the ministers, it must remain possible ‘to effectively combat and sanction actual abuse’.

Van Gennip and Schouten are also announcing an adjustment to the debt policy. From now on, benefits agencies UWV and SVB can no longer rely on material assets such as a house or car ‘for monetary debts that are less than 36 times the repayment capacity’. The cabinet wants to work on a policy where a payment arrangement is “finite”, so that people can “start with a clean slate” at the end of their debt.