Cabinet wants to scale up the “Laurentien method” and better help allowance parents

By José Boon

Mar 14, 2025 at 14:44 Update: 3 hours ago

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The cabinet admits that the recovery operation after the benefits scandal has gotten out of hand, so that the more severely affected people in particular are not properly helped. The operation should be simpler, so that all victims will have reimbursed their damage by the end of 2027.

The cabinet is thus responding to a critical report from January with the telling title Promise less, do more. The Van Dam committee therefore recommended making the recovery operation simpler and letting go of the “holy promise” that everyone would be helped by 2027.

“The process has stalled in parts,” State Secretary Sandra Palmen (Allowances) admitted in a letter to the House of Representatives on Friday. For example, people have to wait too long for their personal file and for objections to be dealt with.

Blasting personal files because of confidentiality rules should become the exception instead of the rule. The cabinet also wants to get rid of penalty payments, which the government must pay if victims have to wait too long to hear their objection.

The implementing organization wants to eliminate the mountain of objections without penalty payments getting in the way. In doing so, Palmen is following the committee's advice.

Scaling up the “Laurentien method”

Another stumbling block is the multitude of routes for people who have suffered more damage than 30,000 euros. They can now choose between five different treatments, each of which amounts to a different amount to be paid out.

Those five routes will soon be reduced to two, Palmen promises. The first route will be that of the Equal Recovery Foundation (SGH), also known as the “Laurentien Method”. In addition, victims can tell their story and a claims analyst then makes a calculation. Here, trust outweighs receipts.

At the moment, the Ministry of Finance still checks all of SGH's claims calculations. That must come to an end, Palmen writes. Within three months, there will be one calculation method so that everyone can make the same calculations and checks are less necessary, she promises. However, the cabinet is “keeping an eye on the relationship between the damage suffered and the benefits scandal”.

To gain momentum, SGH needs to scale up considerably. “If we get the space, we can help all victims within 2.5 years,” an SGH spokesperson told NU.nl earlier in the day. The cabinet wants to work with the foundation to see how more people can be helped.

The foundation works with 25 major organizations such as KPMG and Rabobank, which 'lend' their staff to the recovery operation at a low rate. In addition, there are almost eight thousand volunteers who want to work as listening writers.

Victims who do not want to share their story extensively will soon be able to go to 'route B'. There, they can “make their damage plausible” themselves or with a lawyer directly with the implementing organization.

Separate counter for victims who lost their homes

There will be a separate counter for complicated claims. This concerns, for example, the real damage that someone has suffered as a result of the forced sale of a house. In addition, assistance to families who have lost control of their lives must be expanded. This concerns approximately 2,500 families.

The cabinet promises to make improvements “as soon as possible”, although not all measures and goals have been developed. The uniform calculation method, route B and the route for complex damage are given top priority. Palmen does not need extra money for the time being, something she warned about earlier.

Palmen wants to have compensated the financial damage suffered by all victims by the end of 2027. She stresses that the recovery process can take longer for many families. The ministry wants to talk to victims about long-term aftercare.

Recovery surgery in numbers

• The recovery operation started in 2019, when the government still assumed several hundred victims.
• It now appears that there are almost 41,000 victims.
• Half of this group may have additional damage, the Ministry of Finance suspects.
• Around 1,500 parents have been reimbursed for the additional damage.
• 11.7 billion euros have been reserved for the entire recovery operation.