News item | 22-06-2022 | 7:00 pm
On the eve of ‘Public Services Day’, the Status of the implementation of social security and the bottleneck letters from the UWV and the SVB were presented to the Senate and the House of Representatives by Minister Van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment) and Minister Schouten (Poverty , Participation and Pensions). With the Status of implementation, the Senate and House of Representatives are informed every six months about what is going on in the implementation of social security. The bottleneck letters provide insight into bottlenecks in the implementation that stand in the way of good service provision.
Bottleneck letters UWV and the SVB
UWV and the SVB provide services to millions of people and make decisions that affect people every day. This regularly leads to situations in which citizens find themselves in a bind because of existing legislation and regulations and the implementing organizations are unable to offer a suitable solution. With the bottleneck letters, the implementing organizations provide insight into these situations. This helps to align the policy more closely with the needs of the implementation. In order to provide citizens with good services. Sharing bottlenecks promotes a good dialogue. And that dialogue is important, because by (continuing to) enter into a dialogue with each other, we can work towards solutions. Further investigation and resolution of bottlenecks with legislation and regulations has the highest priority.
Among other things, the SVB insists that it wants to use data more efficiently, for example to be able to pay out the AIO benefit (Supplementary Income Provision for the Elderly) in a targeted manner. UWV mentions the high housing costs for people who only have to get by on the attachment-free base. Work is underway on both points of attention. Just like reducing the non-use of benefits, an important part of fighting poverty.
State of implementation and the Simplification Agenda
The ‘State of the implementation’ is drawn up twice a year. The report presented today is the first State of Social Security implementation of SZW since the Rutte IV cabinet took office. Not entirely unexpectedly, the report comes today, on the eve of Public Services Day, where extensive consideration is given to the way in which policy works out in practice.
New this year is the addition of the simplification agenda. The laws and regulations governing income support have become quite complex over the years. People sometimes don’t know what they are entitled to, or what they have to do to make a claim. They also don’t always know where to turn. Work is therefore underway to simplify the social security system. To create laws and regulations that are understandable, workable and enforceable. With the Simplification Agenda, SZW shows how work is being done on solving concrete bottlenecks experienced by citizens, employers and implementation.