Florien: 'I want justice for the parents whose lives have been stopped'

The allowance affair has caused many more parents into trouble than known so far. Florien Jansen (49) had a childcare agency in Rotterdam. She had to quit when, as childminders and parents, they fell victim to the tax office fraud hunt. Last spring, after years, she only found out what really happened: she and her customers were the victims of a derailed government project. “I suddenly found out that you can't trust the government. Very crazy.” Florien Jansen is relaxed about life. With her optimistic sobriety, entrepreneurial spirit, love for music and her children, she enjoys life. She currently does translation work. Together with her partner, she has an office with a beautiful view of the Rotterdam skyline.

She had to give up.

She has left the past behind her. For 10 years, she worked in childcare. First as a childminder herself, later with the childminding agency that bore her own, cheerful name: Florien. That desk is broken: when she saw no way out at the end of 2016, she had to give up. The parents and thus her customers all faced the cessation of childcare surcharges. There was no more income, no new customers arrived. Parents were in deep financial trouble. “It was a very bad time. Those parents were often about vulnerable people. I also didn't see any perspective anymore, had sleepless nights. Until I thought: am I still in the mood for this, do I still want to do this? That's when I decided to completely change course. I was done with it.”

This spring, Florien's eyes suddenly fell. At the time, she thought: isn't there anything to blame for those parents? Did I sometimes do something wrong? “You're going to doubt yourself,” she says.

One word sealed her fate

After the revelations by Trouw and RTL News about the allowance affair she found out that it was no accident, not an unfortunate coincidence. With one word, Florien found out that she was part of a government project: CAF. Her office had come into the crosshairs of the Combiteam Approach Facilitators, abbreviated CAF. After the news about this cowboy team from the tax authorities and surcharges, she delved into the old administration of the childminding agency. There, she suddenly saw that one word that sealed her fate. CAFE. “Suddenly, the penny dropped and I understood what had really happened.” That realization leaves deep marks: “I always thought you could trust the government. That's what I thought of the tax authorities too. You're assuming the right thing anyway. You think: those people will know what they are doing. Naive maybe, but that's how I lived my life. I think it's a very crazy experience to find out that you can't trust the government. I'm looking much more critically now, actually at everything. I won't let myself eat cheese off the bread anymore.”

Fewer Dutch names

Florien says almost casually: “I always told new customers with fewer Dutch names: keep everything carefully, all papers, make sure you can justify everything. It may take a few months or a year, but the tax authorities will come to you. That is one hundred percent certain. And that's how it went.” Things went from bad to worse in 2015. What Florien didn't know was that her agency was specially selected by the GGD and the tax authorities as part of a project to 'significantly' reduce 'the number of childminding agencies that could possibly do something with. She was told that she was given control because Florien was highlighted there via a “sample”. A new inspector from the GGD arrived, who, to her surprise, would write very critical reports about the quality of childcare. And that GGD person was suddenly sent by an inspector from the tax authorities to mess everything up. But she never received a report of his findings.

“Suspects of abuse”

Florien has become a file. CAF1601. She gets code names. Mast. Steven. In the final report: Anchor. Everything is reviewed: invoices, contracts, timesheets, payments, bank accounts, childminders, childminders and, of course, (second) nationality. Whether there is a relationship with the Netherlands Antilles. Whether there are other surcharges. Whether people have benefits. No evidence is found that anything is wrong. However, the internal reports state that there are “suspicions of abuse”, that this is a “risky” agency and that Florien is a “facilitator”. Someone who organizes fraud or abuse, as a type of illegal ATM for surcharges. The CAF team is looking for ways to address this “facilitator”. Despite the fact that there is no evidence of abuse or fraud. The method is: stopping all allowances from all parents associated with Florien.

It's the end of 2015, almost Christmas. “That was when I thought: what did I end up in? Parents received a letter with that closure and had to respond within two weeks. Everything went wrong from that moment on. People had to object, and it took months before they heard back,” says Florien.

The F word

“In that phase, I spent hours at the Tax Phone almost every day to find solutions for parents. It swallowed it all up. My ideal was: good childcare, complying with the rules, courses for childminders, I was lending toys. But I had almost no time for that. There was no more money coming in, I couldn't recruit new customers.” That's when the F word comes in: fraud. “People are going to hold you accountable. Because the tax authorities told some parents that the reason for the closure was that the childminding agency is fraud. I found that really weird. I thought: what is that based on? I always reported everything neatly. In fact, if I thought something was wrong, I reported it myself.” Although we know the answer, we ask Florien straight out: did you commit fraud? Definitely: “No.” The CAF1601 final report also makes it crystal clear: no fraud, and 'in general', all childcare costs have been paid properly.

So Florien now understands what happened to her and her parents. She knows how she was thought of. How involved officials described themselves as the “duo of pitch and feathers”, whose email motto was: “actions... not words, words...”. These reports were prepared with the copyright: “Hansje Brinker productions”. Florien: “They laughed a bit about it. Like they were joking. They must have had fun with it. But over people's backs. Disrespectful.”

'I want satisfaction'

Florien has put the affair behind her: “I'm happy to have a new life.” But she's not done with it yet, especially now that she knows that innocent people were victims of a derailed fraud hunt. Because after the stoppages, parental recoveries followed. Over series of years. “It's incredible, but there are still parents who are in deep trouble. With debts of tens of thousands of euros, I want compensation for those people whose lives were stopped then and who are still unable to move on due to financial problems.”

She hopes that Secretary of State Snel of Finance will help duped parents get out of the swamp. That they are compensated. “It would be a band-aid on the wound. You cannot reverse it, not even the suffering that has been caused. Marriages that broke up, careers that stalled, people who lost something. That's why I'm telling my story: I'm asking for acknowledgment of what happened to those people. I'm hoping for justice.source: rtl news