Forty municipalities automatically grant certain family allowances

Thanks to the further digitization of the administration, this should also be possible for a number of other premiums. Until now, families had to apply for a birth premium themselves, or an allowance for a child with a disability. But many families fell by the wayside as a result. In Wingene, that easily amounts to ten families per year.

Flemish Member of Parliament Brecht Warnez from Wingene: “We see that not everyone who applies for a premium or does not know that the premium is there. Very often it is precisely the vulnerable who do not apply for that premium or do not receive it. It is very important that everyone who is entitled to the premium that it also receives, and has as little work as possible on it.”

Family Trial

And so Wingene will automatically award that premium in a pilot project. “It is about an intelligent way of data management. We make the data we have of people in vulnerable situations available to the local government with one goal. That they can also pay additional premiums or other benefits automatically. In the past, we established that people are entitled to a social benefit, but they don’t know it, and yet they lack what they are entitled to, so if you live in a financially difficult situation, it’s even worse that you don’t get the extra resources, because you don’t know.”

The intention is that this system will be rolled out throughout Flanders and will also be extended to other premiums. “It’s about listing people who are entitled to a social allowance. And we use the child benefit for that. You can see who is entitled to that extra child benefit, because you are financially vulnerable. I do not rule out that it will eventually, depending on what the municipality wants to achieve can be used for several things.”

The Flemish government is allocating 500,000 euros for the “Family Proef” project.