Research into ways of simplifying family benefits

The Dutch government offers financial support to families through various child-related schemes, such as child benefit and childcare allowance. These schemes also apply to families where one or both parents work outside the Netherlands but live in the Netherlands, or vice versa. Handling these international cases has proven to be particularly complex. Ecorys has investigated how the system can be simplified and what lessons the Netherlands can learn from the approaches taken by Germany and Denmark.

Background

The number of families in which one or both parents work or live in a country other than the Netherlands has been increasing for years. The administration of family benefits for these families is complex, which puts pressure on the implementing bodies, the Social Insurance Bank (SVB) and the Benefits Service. In practice, this means that parents have to wait longer for clarity and financial support.

The SVB has therefore asked Ecorys to investigate concrete starting points for simplifying the implementation of family benefits and how these can be incorporated into current and future (legislative) processes. This includes new legislation on the financing of childcare and the reform of the General Child Benefit Act (AKW) and the Child-Related Budget Act (WKB). For this study, Ecorys drew inspiration from Germany and Denmark.

Key findings

A few things stand out from German and Danish practice:

• In both Germany and Denmark, the government finances childcare (largely) directly. The subsidy is a contribution to the system as a whole and is not linked to individual children. This approach reduces administrative tasks and ensures that the scheme is less likely to be exported in cross-border cases. This limits the involvement of other countries, thereby preventing delays and misunderstandings.
• By bundling administrative tasks at a single point of contact, as in Denmark, families have fewer contact moments and coordination between the authorities involved is more efficient.
• The Danish implementing organisation has direct access to data from the Danish tax authorities and can therefore accurately determine the rights of parents. In addition, Danish child and youth benefits are only paid once a quarter, which allows more time for careful processing.

Want to know more? Read our research report here.