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In the child welfare fraud scandal (Template:Lang-nl, lit. 'allowances affair') was a scandal regarding the unnecessarily harsh behavior Tax and Customs Administration in policing the distribution of childcare allowances. From 2013 until at least 2019, approximately 26,000 parents in the Netherlands were unfairly suspected of fraud regarding childcare allowance claims or otherwise treated unfairly. This was brought to public attention in September 2018. Investigators of the scandal described the working procedure as "discriminatory" and filled with an "institutional bias" that violated of "the principles of the rule of law" and suggested "administrative incompetence."

In 2019, the Dutch Undersecretary for Finance Menno Snel resigned over his mishandling of the affair. In early 2021, his boss Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Eric Wiebes also resigned. The same day, two months before the 2021 Dutch general election, the third Rutte cabinet fell after a parliamentary investigation committee released a report on the affair.

History

Introduction of allowances

In 2004, the Netherlands passed a Childcare Act (Dutch: Wet kinderopvang) introducing childcare allowances. A childcare allowance is a direct payment from the government for daycare or professional babysitting to subsidize childrearing. However, childcare agencies must also charge their customers a portion of the fee. Families in which all parents work (i.e., single-parent families and families in which both parents work) are eligible for the payments. While the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment officially runs the program, the Tax and Customs Administration (which falls under the Dutch Ministry of Finance) is responsible for its implementation, including payment and fraud prevention.

The next year, the Netherlands also introduced a General Law on Welfare Schemes (Dutch: Algemene wet inkomensafhankelijke regelingen), which restricted the total welfare payments for which a person is eligible. The law did not include a customary "hardship clause", which would allow for exceptions to the law if the consequences were deemed unreasonable, despite the advice of the Dutch Council of State.

Childcare agency De Appelbloesem

In the years after the introduction of the childcare allowance, childminder agencies arose that committed fraud by not asking for a personal contribution from the parents. Often the parents did not know that a personal contribution was required and relied on the information provided by a childminder agency. One notorious example was the childcare agency De Appelbloesem ("The Apple Blossom"), where the parents instead gave their DigiD (benefits ID) login directly to the childminder agency instead of applying individually. In 2009 the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) raided the agency and in 2015, its director was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for fraud and forgery. According to the Tax and Customs Administration, affiliated parents had to pay back the full childcare allowances, including payments received after leaving De Appelbloesem.

In November 2010, the Dutch House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by MP Richard de Mos (PVV) to recover the funds from fraudulent childminder agencies instead of parents who acted in good faith. Minister of Social Affairs Henk Kamp wrote to the House that this was not legally possible and that parents should instead sue the corresponding childminder agency. By that time, the childminder agency had been bankrupt for six months.

The parents appealed the allowance repayment, but after a number of lawsuits, the Council of State sided with the Tax and Customs Administration in 2012 and confirmed that the law required reimbursement of the full childcare allowances.

Bulgarian fraud

In 2013, RTL Nieuws revealed that some Bulgarian immigrants had abused the allowance system. In this fraud, Bulgarians were encouraged by a gang to briefly visit the Netherlands. They registered at an address there, and retroactively applied for a €6000-8000 health care and housing allowance (per person). At the time, the tax authorities paid allowances immediately and checked eligibility afterwards, at which point the Bulgarians had already left the country. Over the period 2007–2013, 805 Bulgarians received about four million euros in unjustified payments in this way.

According to Undersecretary Frans Weekers, many of these cases were not deliberate fraud but instead negligence. Eventually, Weekers survived a motion of no confidence in which he only retained support from the coalition parties (PvdA and VVD) and two small opposition parties (SGP and ChristenUnie).

Fight against fraud

In response to the Bulgarian fraud ring, the House of Representatives insisted on stricter fraud prevention. Separately, the coalition agreement of First Rutte cabinetincluded a provision to intensify anti-fraud enforcement. On 28 May 2013, the government established a Fraud Management Team, consisting of top officials from the Tax and Customs Administration and the Ministry of Finance, to fulfill these promises. Later that year, the Fraud Management Team decided to investigate using a Multidisciplinary Search for Facilitators (CAF; Dutch Combiteam Aanpak Facilitators). Facilitators refers to people or institutions that facilitate (suspected) fraud. In the context of the childcare allowance, this meant that the CAF looked for childminder agencies with suspicious childcare allowance applications.

In June 2013, Prime Minister Mark Rutte also established the ministerial committee Tackling Fraud, which would exist until 2015. This committee developed a broader strategy for the national government's anti-fraud campaign, but did not specifically consider Tax and Customs Administration's approach to welfare fraud. In the autumn of 2013, the committee prepared a letter to the parliament, which initially set out a tough approach, but which ultimately emphasized the need to act proportionately by the government, and trust rather than mistrust.

The cases

CAF 11 Hawaii

The first case that became public where the harshness of the fight against childcare allowance fraud was visibile was the eleventh case of the CAF; nicknamed CAF 11 Hawaii. This was the investigation into childminder agency Dadim in Eindhoven. The local government received signals in 2011 that this childminder agency was facilitating fraud with the childcare allowance. The judge ruled in 2012 that no fraud had been found, but the Tax and Customs Administration designated the childminder office in October 2013 as an office where fraud was suspected. In November 2013, sixteen visits were subsequently made to childminders affiliated with this agency, but no evidence of fraud was found here. Nevertheless, in April 2014, 317 parents who used this childminder agency were classified as fraudsters. Almost all of these parents had a second nationality.

Other CAF cases

It was later found that the CAF carried out 630 other cases, possibly involving the same harshness as in CAF 11 Hawaii. It is estimated that about 2,200 families were victims of the same harshness. Only 200 of these files were transferred to the Public Prosecution Service for using forged documents, which resulted in only 15 convictions and eight settlements.

The CAF used a group approach in many of these cases, based on the '80/20 approach' (80% fraud, 20% innocent). Quantitative substantiation for this was lacking from the Tax and Customs Administration and it turned out to be hardly possible for innocent parents to reverse decisions.

Full repayment

Then there is a group of thousands of parents who fell victim to the strict regulation where a small mistake could lead to a full refund of the childcare allowance. This was stated in the law and was initially confirmed by a decision of the Council of State. In 2019, the Council of State reverted this decision. It was then decided to return the recovered amount to the parents, and possibly also compensation on a case-by-case basis. This concerned approximately 8,000 parents.

Qualification "intent/gross negligence"

When the Tax and Customs Administration suspected serious culpable acts, parents were given the qualification "Intent/Gross negligence" (Dutch: Opzet/Grove schuld). Because of this qualification, they were not eligible for a payment arrangement. With a payment arrangement, they would be allowed to repay their debt according to their ability to pay in two years to avoid falling below the subsistence level. Debt that remained after that period would be considered irrecoverable by the Tax and Customs Administration. Later investigations showed that 96 percent had wrongly received this qualification. Because parents were not eligible for a payment plan, they became heavily indebted.

In November 2020, Undersecretary Alexandra van Huffelen released a memo from 2016, which stated that all people with a childcare benefit debt of more than 3000 euros automatically received the 'intent/gross negligence' qualification. According to Van Huffelen, it was unclear whether this memo was actually carried out.

Others

At first, the child welfare fraud scandal referred specifically to the issue surrounding childcare allowance. Later it turned out to be applicable as well for the rent allowance, care allowance and the child-related budget. In the case of income tax, too, it appeared labeling of fraud was on the basis of profiling and suspicions. Under the code name 'Project 1043', tens of thousands of citizens were faced with a harsh approach to fraud.

Investigations

As early as 9 August 2017, the National Ombudsman published a report entitled "No power play, but fair play" about the 232 parents of the CAF 11 Hawaii case. In it, the Ombudsman already strongly criticized the harsh approach that the Tax and Customs Administration took here, and recommended that these parents would be compensated. The child welfare fraud scandal was really publicly discovered when RTL Nieuws and Trouw newspaper reported about this case in September 2018.

The SP opened a hotline for victims and made a black book on the basis of the 280 complaints received, which was handed over to the Undersecretary Menno Snel on 28 August 2019.

The Central Government Audit Service also investigated the child welfare fraud scandal in 2019. Specifically, the aim of the investigation was to find out whether the problem of CAF 11 Hawaii had also taken place in other CAF cases. The controversial aspect about this investigation was that the top administrators in the tax authorities stated the top three key players in the child welfare fraud scandal, working at the CAF, would not be prosecuted.

After the Council of State previously agreed with the Tax and Customs Administration on their strict approach to fraud, the Council of State reverted its position in October 2019. Contrary to previous rulings, the Council of State expressed the opinion that the Tax and Customs Administration did have the discretion to provide customization.

Internal reports

As early as 2009, the Land's Advocate of Holland had issued a draft recommendation, which hinted that a less harsh approach was possible within the law for parents who had not paid a personal contribution on the advice of their childminder agency. The state attorney called a tough approach (reclaiming everything) 'justifiable', but urged caution around individual facts and circumstances. It is unclear why this advice was not followed up. The exact content of this advisory report is still classified, because of the policy not to disclose the advice of the Land's Advocate of Holland. However, its general content was discussed in the House of Representatives in December 2020.

In November 2019, a former employee also sent an urgent letter to the House of Representatives. From 2014 to 2016, he handled objections to the Tax Authorities/Surcharges Collection department. In the urgent letter, he said that parents were treated unfairly harshly and that legal protection was not in order. He also wrote that he reported this several times to his supervisor, but nothing was done about it.

In October 2020, it became public that internal lawyer Sandra Palmen also reported unlawful acts at the Allowance department in 2017. On the basis of a decision by the Council of State, she says that the Tax and Customs Administration have acted reprehensibly. This report did not lead to a change in policy either.

Commission-Donner

On 1 July 2019, Undersecretary Menno Snel established an "Advisory Commission on the Implementation of Allowance". This committee was chaired by former minister and former vice-chairman of the Council of State Piet Hein Donner, which gave it the nickname of the Commission-Donner. The commission also consisted of Willemien den Ouden and former Undersecretary Jetta Klijnsma. The task of this committee was to advise on how to improve the allowances. The committee also had the specific task of assessing the scope for handling the child welfare fraud scandal cases.

Onn 12 March 2020, the commission presented its final report, 'Looking back in wonder 2' (Dutch: Omzien in verwondering). In it, the commission recommended extending the compensation scheme for the approximately 300 victims to other parents who were "treated institutionally biased".

The findings of this report were however criticized. For example, the committee was accused of not being critical enough of the role of the Council of State, of which Donner himself was vice-chairman at the time. The committee was also accused of keeping politicians out of harm's way, especially former Minister Asscher. For example, news site Follow the Money discovered that the commission drew conclusions contrary to its own findings.

Dutch Data Protection Authority

After reports from RTL Nieuws and Trouw about the use of nationality in the assessment of benefits, the Dutch Data Protection Authority also decided to start an investigation into the Tax and Customs Administration in May 2019. In July 2020, the chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority presented the report to Undersecretary Van Huffelen. The Dutch Data Protection Authority described the Tax and Customs Administration's working method as unlawful, discriminatory and improper. The Dutch Data Protection Authority also described in the report that it was opposed by the Tax and Customs Administration. Based on this report, the Dutch Data Protection Authority is considering another sanction for the Tax and Customs Administration.

Parliamentary interrogation committee Childcare Allowance

Creation

On the initiative of GroenLinks MP Bart Snels, the House of Representatives instituted a parliamentary interrogation committee Childcare Allowance on 2 July 2020. The aim was to find out to what extent the cabinet was aware of the child welfare fraud scandal and why it took until 2019 before this was recognized. A minority of the House of Representatives also wanted former MPs to be able to be heard during the interrogations. The decision not to allow this was criticized, because as co-legislator and controller of the government, the House of Representatives also had a role in the child welfare fraud scandal.

Because statements during a parliamentary questioning are no longer legally usable for criminal investigation and a criminal investigation by the Public Prosecution Service was still ongoing, the questioning was coordinated with the Public Prosecution Service. This is why civil servants were not asked about ethnic profiling by the tax authorities, because this is part of the criminal investigation.

The parliamentary interrogation committee consisted of the following MPs:

• Chris van Dam (chair, Christian Democratic Appeal)
• Attje Kuiken (vice-chair, Labour Party)
• Renske Leijten (Socialist Party)
• Salima Belhaj (Democrats 66)
• Jeroen van Wijngaarden (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy)
• Tom van der Lee (GroenLinks)
• Roy van Aalst (Party for Freedom)
• Femke Merel van Kooten-Arissen (independent)

Interrogations

The interrogations took place in November 2020. In the first week, twelve experts and former top officials from the Tax and Customs Administration, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment were interrogated. On 18 November, the former bosses of the Tax and Customs Administration were questioned by the committee. They blamed the child welfare fraud scandal on the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. A day later, the officials of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in turn referred back to the Tax and Customs Administration as the cause of the child welfare fraud scandal. During the interrogation of Sandra Palmen, Leijten asked her to read part of her memo, so that white-lacquered passages also became public. This showed that she already advised in 2017 not to continue litigating against parents.

In the second week, seven (former) government members were subsequently interrogated:

• Frans Weekers (Undersecretary for Finance 2010–2014)
• Eric Wiebes (Undersecretary for Finance 2014–2017)
• Menno Snel (Undersecretary for Finance 2017–2019)
• Wopke Hoekstra (Minister of Finance 2017-now)
• Lodewijk Asscher (Minister for Social Affairs and Employment 2012–2017)
• Tamara van Ark (Undersecretary for Social Affairs and Employment 2017–2020)
• Mark Rutte (Prime-minister 2010-now)

Report

On 17 December 2020, the committee presented its report entitled 'Unprecedented injustice' to Speaker of the House of Representatives Khadija Arib. The report criticized the Tax and Customs Administration, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the cabinet, the Council of State and also the House of Representatives itself. The committee wrote that because the Ministry of Finance implemented the childcare allowance as a mass process, the parents did not receive the protection they deserved, thus violating the "fundamental principles of the rule of law". In particular, the committee was critical of the information provided by the Tax and Customs Administration, both towards its own ministers and the House of Representatives, and towards affected parents, the judiciary and the media. The committee also said it had received slow and incomplete information. In particular, there was criticism of the Rutte doctrine, a term that originated from a text message from a civil servant to Rutte that was discussed during the interrogations. This doctrine states that communication between officials and ministers did not have to be made public. Since recommendations fell outside the remit of this committee, they urged those involved to find out how they could have prevented this.

Consequences

Political

On 4 December 2019, a motion of no confidence was filed against the Undersecretary for Finance Menno Snel in a debate due to the child welfare fraud scandal. He survived the motion with only the support of the coalition parties CDA, ChristenUnie, D66 and VVD together with the opposition parties GroenLinks, SGP and independent MP Van Haga. On 18 December 2019, Snel resigned during a debate about the child welfare fraud scandal. He was succeeded by two secretaries of state; Alexandra van Huffelen and Hans Vijlbrief (both from D66). Van Huffelen was responsible for the Customs and Allowance departments of the Tax and Customs Administration, and thus for the resolving of the child welfare fraud scandal.

In December 2020, after the report of the parliamentary interrogation committee, the former Minister of Social Affairs and Employment Lodewijk Asscher personally apologized for his role in the child welfare fraud scandal. His role in the child welfare fraud scandal led to discussion within the party about his position as leader for the parliamentary elections of 2021. Initially he indicated that he wanted to continue as party leader. However, on 14 January 2021, Asscher announced that he would step down as party leader and candidate MP.

On 10 January 2021, GroenLinks parliamentary leader Jesse Klaver announced a motion of no confidence against the third Rutte cabinet for an upcoming debate on 15 January 2021 about the report of the parliamentary interrogation committee. The entire opposition signalled that they either supported the motion or considered it seriously. Just before that debate, the cabinet collectively decided to resign and to continue as a demissionary cabinet until the planned 2021 Dutch general election that will take place two months later. In addition, the Minister of Economic Affairs Eric Wiebes decided to resign immediately.

Prosecution

Already on 28 November 2019, the parliamentary committee for finance explored the possibilities of prosecuting the then Undersecretary Snel and his civil servants. Around the same time, there was also a call within the civil service of the Tax and Customs Administration for disciplinary and judicial measures against the executives involved. After Snel resigned, Minister Hoekstra indicated on 12 January 2020 that he saw no indications of criminal acts by the Tax and Customs Administration. At the insistence of the House of Representatives, Hoekstra nevertheless decided to ask an external agency to reassess the information for criminality and also called on everyone to report information about criminal acts. On 19 May 2020, the Ministry of Finance nevertheless filed a report against the Tax and Customs Administration as a result of the child welfare fraud scandal. The filing related to the gagging and professional discrimination in the period from 2013 to 2017. MP Omtzigt expressed his concerns about a criminal investigation by the Public Prosecution Service, given that the Public Prosecution Service itself also played a role in the child welfare fraud scandal, by tackling matters under administrative rather than criminal law in consultation with the tax authorities.

In addition to the report filed by the Ministry of Finance, on 28 February 2020, five more reports had been filed with the Public Prosecution Service against the Tax Authorities for criminal acts regarding the child welfare fraud scandal. One report is known to have been made by duped parents in December 2019, but no person or reason is known for the others.

On 7 January 2021, the Public Prosecution Service announced that it would not start a criminal investigation, because after a careful assessment it did not result in a criminal suspicion. The Public Prosecution Service stated that there was no evidence of gagging and professional discrimination. In addition, the Public Prosecution referred to the criminal immunity of the Tax and Customs Administration as part of the State, which also includes its officials who implemented the policy, provided that they do not act out of their own gain or interest. The Public Prosecution stated that the incorrect treatment of the parents was due to administrative and political choices, for which accountability belongs in the political domain. A group of duped parents and their lawyers indicated that they intended to sue the Public Prosecution Service to proceed with criminal prosecution.

A group of twenty duped parents filed a complaint on 12 January 2021 against a number of government officials involved; Tamara van Ark, Wopke Hoekstra, Eric Wiebes, Menno Snel and Lodewijk Asscher. According to the lawyer representing the parents, these ministers are guilty of a criminal offense and negligence. Because it concerns (former) ministers, this declaration was filed with the Attorney General of the Supreme Court.

Compensation

In March 2020, the Commission-Donner issued the recommendations to compensate wrongly accused parents. A day later, Undersecretary Van Huffelen put forward a more extensive compensation scheme, totalling half a billion euros. In July 2020, a special department at the Ministry of Finance was created for this compensation. Because the payment of compensation was slow, the SP successfully pushed for a Christmas gift of 750 euros, which was paid in December 2020 to 8,500-9,500 of the affected parents. In December 2020 this gift was extended to 7,000 more of the affected parents.

In response to the report of the parliamentary interrogation committee, Van Huffelen announced on 22 December 2020 that all wrongly accused parents would receive € 30,000 compensation, regardless of the financial loss, unless they qualify for higher compensation. This should take place within four months, for which the recovery operation will be expanded.

In July 2020, it became public that Undersecretary Snel wanted to compensate the victimized parents in the CAF 11 case earlier, in June 2019. This was rejected at that time by the cabinet, amongst other things, because they wanted to wait for the report of the commission-Donner and for fear of setting a precedent. There was also a dispute between the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment and the Ministry of Finance about who would pay for the compensation.

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• 2020s controversies
• Discrimination in the Netherlands
• Scandals in the Netherlands
• Welfare fraud