The right-wing cabinet’s plans to amend legislation aimed at ensuring people participate more in society are right to focus more on building up trust and less on finding work, according to the government’s socio-cultural think-tank SCP.

Research by the SCP shows that there is no jobs option for around one third of the people claiming welfare benefits, and that means a broader approach is needed.

“The participation law is currently focused on helping people find work,” said SCP director Karen van Oudenhoven: “But about one third of people on welfare are not in a position to hold down a paid job. At the same time, there is very little trust [in officialdom] but this is so important in helping people.”

A large number of people on welfare benefits can be helped to find job while others can participate in society via volunteer work, she said. “But there is a third group whose problems are so great that a job or other option won’t work.”

The SCP research shows that some welfare claimants feel they are being seen as potential fraudsters and that makes them unwilling to talk about their problems. Breaking through this barrier requires a change in the way claimants are viewed, the SCP said.

Government departments charged with administering social security benefits have come under repeated fire for discriminating against claimants for a variety of reasons.

The Dutch privacy watchdog in June warned that the tax office’s approach, including its use of algorithms to identify potential fraudsters, was “unlawful, discriminatory and contrary to privacy legislation.”

The AP’s report cites several examples of government organisations using “ill-considered algorithms,” including the Education Executive Agency’s (DUO) use of an algorithm to detect fraud regarding student grants that it called “discriminatory in nature without any substantiation.”

It also criticised benefits agency UWV for “illegally us[ing] algorithm[s] to detect fraud with unemployment benefits.”

The child benefit scandal, which brought down the government in 2021, involved over 50,000 Dutch parents who were incorrectly accused of fraud and unjustly ordered to pay back thousands of euros in childcare benefits by the Dutch tax office. They have still not received compensation.