Ombudsman: government knows who needs help but doesn’t act

The Dutch government often knows which citizens are entitled to financial help but is slow to act or fails to step in at all, leaving people to fall into difficulty unnecessarily, the national ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen has said in his annual report.

Van Zutphen said in his presentation of the report that the problem was not a lack of information but a choice. “There is an idea behind it that if people need it, they will come forward,” he told broadcaster NOS.

The three ombudsman offices – the national, children’s and veterans’ – together received 25,000 complaints and signals last year.

Van Zutphen cited the Tijdelijk Noodfonds Energie, a temporary state fund for lower-income households with high energy bills, as one example. Applications can only be made with a DigiD digital identity account, excluding many of those who need help most.

The ombudsman has previously said 2.6 million people in the Netherlands lack the digital skills to apply for such schemes themselves, and that 273,000 people under legal guardianship cannot apply at all without a representative.

In April, Van Zutphen criticised the Jetten cabinet’s plan to cut spending on proactively contacting people entitled to welfare. The cabinet later dropped the plan.

Some councils and government bodies do already approach citizens directly about benefits they may be entitled to, Van Zutphen said, but not on a large scale.