Fights with Finance, yet Laurentien got a million-dollar job
The (Equal) worthy Recovery Foundation, founded by Princess Laurentien who resigned last week, will help thousands of victims in the Benefits scandal with compensation. The cooperation between the princess and the government had a turbulent start.
- Authors
- Published on September 4, 2024
Princess Laurentien at the start of a campaign that draws attention to the 80,000 children in the Netherlands who feel fundamentally alone in their home situation.
Photo: Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP
A special outing lures the formation negotiators away from the Binnenhof on Monday morning, November 15, 2021. It's not far away. Their destination is less than two kilometers from where they have been trying to assemble a successor to the Rutte III cabinet for more than six months now. A few weeks earlier, the party leaders of VVD, CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie tried to make contact with “allowance parents”. After all, the previous cabinet has fallen over the Benefits scandal, the negotiators must do something about the miserable situation and want to discuss it with the victims. Talking is fine, writing “dozens of affected parents of the benefits affair”. But under certain conditions: “In order to empower us and to feel equal, we would like to invite you to a familiar place in The Hague instead of visiting you. And we like to choose our own moderator who we trust.”
NRC TodaySep 6, 2024 20 min
The princess and the allowance parents
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/09/06/de-prinses-en-de-toeslagenouders-a4864787
That “familiar place” where negotiators ring the bell that morning is owned by Prince Constantijn, the husband of Princess Laurentien of Orange. The “own moderator” is Laurentien van Oranje. And the letter, with the dozens of affected parents as sender, was written by Laurentien van Oranje. She deliberately does not report that. “By not mentioning me yet, the proposed approach feels less' heavy ',” the princess explains to the parents involved by email. “The moderator would be me then...”
The timing of the meeting is remarkable. Corona infections are increasing; three days earlier, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced a partial lockdown. The advice: “Do not receive more than 4 guests per day aged 13 or older at home and work from home unless there is really no other option.” Three days later — foundation employees scan visitors' corona apps at the door — the building fills with around forty people. They are divided into four rooms: Cloud, Asia, Orange and Oval. There, Mark Rutte and Sophie Hermans from the VVD, Sigrid Kaag and Rob Jetten from D66, Wopke Hoekstra and Pieter Heerma from the CDA and Gert-Jan Segers and Carola Schouten from the ChristenUnie listen to the stories of children and parents in varying compositions. Between sessions, politicians get the opportunity for “reflection”. “Group Chairs and Seconds walk around the house to reflect on the conversations they have just had,” the playbook states. “Find an object that expresses your feelings [...] and share it in the Hall on the ground floor in a moment.” Attendees remember a valuable meeting. There was room to bring the parallel worlds of politicians and allowance parents together, to make policy makers understand the destruction they had caused. That morning is a step towards the crucial position that Princess Laurentien acquired three years later in the Allowances recovery operation. This summer, her Foundation (Equal) worthy Recovery was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance to definitively determine financial compensation for tens of thousands of benefit victims — the vast majority of those affected. A mega job worth almost 100 million euros.
Fast approach
Based on discussions with more than twenty stakeholders inside and outside the government and dozens of public and confidential documents, NRC reconstructed how Princess Laurentien acquired this crucial position. Her involvement in the recovery operation led to conflict from the start. Many parents care about Laurentien: the government's recovery operation is so slow that thousands of families still have to wait for years on compensation. Parents see that, with her enthusiasm and position, the princess is better than anyone able to break legal and procedural barriers. Her foundation's approach works quickly, and the House of Representatives is also enthusiastic. Officials, but also people who, like Laurentien, came from outside to help and some victims saw a princess who could hardly be contradicted or corrected and quickly saw people who expressed criticism as an enemy. That attitude does not help recovery surgery, they think. When it comes to compensating victims, her foundation performs a government task — and a government simply has to comply with laws and procedures. In the princess's camp, this regularly led to frustration and anger. Official rules and procedures were seen as an expression of distrust towards benefit victims.
Chairman without panel
The princess's involvement will begin in 2020. The cabinet wants to have affected children themselves advise on the recovery operation with a “child panel”. The panel is chaired by former PvdA MP Lea Bouwmeester. Because Laurentien and her Missing Chapter Foundation have been setting up child panels for other organizations for years, she is hired for a supporting role. That's been going well for a year. But after the cabinet decided at a Catshuis session at the end of 2020 that all victims should receive 30,000 euros anyway, and that there should also be a “child scheme” with compensation for children, it appears that Laurentien wants much more than support. In the spring of 2021, officials from the Ministry of Finance and the child panel are working hard on the contours of the child scheme. The cabinet has made 200 million euros available for it, but what do the children actually need? Now it's time for the child panel. Although Bouwmeester is formally in charge of the development, according to letters to Parliament, Laurentien is also taking on that role. She distributes tasks, corrects presentations for official consultations, makes text adjustments to a letter to Parliament. She sends out a plan outlining the child scheme, including damages of up to ten thousand euros per child, with older children receiving more than younger ones. These amounts lead to official questions: what are they based on? Are they in relation to other claims arrangements? Victims of violence in youth care, for example, receive a maximum of five thousand euros, and children in the Groningen earthquake zone also receive much less. Some parents are worried that young people will suddenly receive such a big bag of money. Are they dealing with that properly? Doubts about her proposal annoy Laurentien, stakeholders notice. On the contrary, the princess believes that she does exactly what her job is: to monitor the voice of children and young people. This is always the case with objections or doubts raised by others: it's the children's will, says Laurentien. They lead, the princess is their voice. The victims' sadness is also her sorrow. Laurentien sees a central role for her foundation and the panel children. She suggests that children provide information to involved officials and politicians at various points in the decision-making process, and then also present the results. In a presentation about the communication approach, the princess and her team write that “children's authentic voices” will ensure that the arrangement lands well, and that a number of children “[want] to talk about it in the media themselves”. Officials resist: it is the government that has the duty and responsibility to inform the outside world. Not only that: letting vulnerable children show up in the media can be harmful. Princess Laurentien denies this via a spokesperson; according to her, it was precisely the ministry who wanted to bring children into the media, she did not. According to officials, it is also not possible to involve the children in the decision-making process: their recommendations are taken seriously, but are “a starting point” for developing the child regulation. Their wishes should also be examined for enforceability and legality, precisely to ensure that the government treats all children equally. The disagreement leads to heated discussions, according to internal documents and discussions with stakeholders. Laurentien and her foundation speak of a “difference of opinion”. Officials believe that the princess dismisses practical and legal objections to the wishes of victims as a lack of respect for the victims. They sometimes feel spoken to as if they don't understand it. A Laurentien spokesperson says they can understand that, because officials sometimes have a “knowledge gap” or lack the ability to listen deeply to the people concerned. That is precisely why Laurentien's expertise and knowledge were used,” he writes. Due to the difficult relations, the contact between the ministry and Laurentien will be limited just before the summer of 2021: only two officials are still allowed to contact the princess directly. After another clash, Laurentien decided in May 2021 that only she and her employees will have direct access to the children and young people involved. Her spokesperson says this happened at the request of the children themselves, who indicated they only wanted to “connect” through Laurentien and her foundation. For example, Lea Bouwmeester — appointed by the cabinet to develop the child scheme — will be a panel chair without a panel.
Guerrilla action
“I'm emailing you because I'm concerned about Laurentien van Oranje's involvement in the child panel and the child arrangement,” an official writes to colleagues. The official points out that the princess, “[would] have talked about a guerrilla action that is needed from her position”. Do colleagues know what Laurentien has in mind with the meetings she holds about recovery surgery? “I think we need to take action on this now before this potentially escalates.” “This is complicated and there is not much to do about it,” responds the top official responsible. “Alexandra [van Huffelen, the responsible Secretary of State] has already spoken to Laurentien once. [...] It's very annoying, but again, we have very little space. Last year, we also asked her to take care of things with the children ourselves.” It is now November 2021. In addition to the child arrangement, the princess has now also focused on the situation of parents involved. Some of them clash on social media about the recovery operation and the role of the parent panel, which was set up at the same time as the child panel to provide advice about the recovery operation. According to some parents, the parent panel pays too much attention to the government and does not look enough at the interests of affected parents. Laurentien receives a request from parents to mediate. In the same building where she will later host the formation negotiators, she is organizing a “dialogue session” to bring the camps together. Everything and everyone is there, those involved say: parents, children, officials, MPs and the Secretary of State, but also representatives of institutions such as the UWV and the Social Insurance Bank. One month later, Number 5 Foundation, one of the princess' foundations, publishes the report (Equal) worthy Recovery. In the 144 pages of “insights and recommendations from children, adolescents and parents themselves”, Laurentien writes on behalf of the affected parents: “We are experts in a difficult life. That's why it's important that new policies, laws and regulations are created with us.” This is the only way the government can regain citizens' trust.
Impasse
That is not what happens. The implementation of the child scheme reached an impasse at the end of 2021. All kinds of details in the elaboration must be presented to the children via Laurentien, say various stakeholders. Due to the conflicting visions of officials and the princess, this is causing a lot of delays. Bouwmeester will resign from the child panel in February 2022. Laurentien's relationships with part of the parent panel have also fallen below freezing. While Laurentien publicly acts as a peacemaker between arguing parent groups, she is weakening the position of the parent panel behind the scenes, several stakeholders say. As an example, they cite a letter with complaints about the parent panel that Laurentien's right hand sent to the ministry in early 2022, without informing the panel about it. Exactly which complaints are contained therein remains unclear to the parent panel. Through a spokesperson, Laurentien now denies that such a letter was sent. From that moment on, Laurentien and the chairman of the parent panel — former Ombudsman Arre Zuurmond — have been on patrol, according to internal documents. Parents on the panel criticize the way the princess operates, and that she would not have achieved anything with her initiatives yet. New orders to involve victims of the Benefits scandal in recovery surgery do not go to the princess's foundations. Van Huffelen does not respond to the report (Equal) Worthy Recovery.
Equivalent role
“This should have been different”, writes the new Secretary of State Aukje de Vries (VVD) to Number 5 on July 15, 2022. For seven months, Laurentien and the group of victims who have gathered around her received no response to the report. In the meantime, the princess has not been idle. In the spring receives Number 5 Foundation €314,000 to donations from the Gieskes-Strijbis Fund, to “take its role” in the Allowance scandal: “a breakthrough in the [...] recovery approach.” The fact that the Ministry of Finance does not immediately seem to be listening to this leads to frustration. On June 1, she writes: de Volkskrantan article about her involvement with affected parents. In it, her right hand, lawyer Gerd van Atten, says that Laurentien's parents are not involved enough in the recovery operation: “For example, the plan [...] to provide help to benefit parents living abroad was rejected.” Shortly afterwards, De Vries' letter plopped on the mat. The entire House of Representatives has called on the cabinet to give victims an “equal role” in the recovery operation. In view of that call, the Secretary of State would still like to work with Number 5, “in line with the report”. Meanwhile stacking the problems with the Implementation Organization for Recovery of Surcharges arise. Parents have to wait endlessly for the government to finally determine their damage. They have to prove that they are really victims — they feel they are being treated as fraudsters again. Social pressure to improve the recovery operation is increasing. At the end of 2022, according to an internal note, the cabinet will involve Number 5 in selecting parent initiatives that should help with this. Laurentien has then been working on her own initiative to help parents more quickly for several months, but emphasizes that she is not an interested party. In an invitation to a meeting about an alternative damage route developed by her foundation, she writes: “Number 5 Foundation monitors neutrality, equality and human logic from our connecting for impact mission and dialogue method.” At the end of 2022, her Number 5 Foundation will also apply as a candidate to establish a claim settlement for former partners of victims. Four other parties are also responding to a consultation that the Ministry of Finance has issued.
Out of control
In the summer of 2023, Laurentien completely shed her role as a neutral mediator. The ministry instructs the newly established (Equal) worthy Recovery Foundation, of which Laurentien is an unpaid chairman, to try out its alternative damage route with three hundred victims. The job comes from Finance's search for an executor of the scheme for former partners. The ministry received that order in June. extensivelyThe broad outlines of her method are simple: the victim tells his or her story to a “listening writer” (a volunteer). He records that story, after which a claims expert determines compensation based on fixed claims. The starting point is that the victim's story is true; evidence is limited. In the following months, the implementation of the pilot will lead to a stack official notes. The results are “partly very positive”, officials wrote on 17 January. The alternative route is fast, and the parents are very happy. The foundation works quickly and amounts to an average of 140,000 euros in compensation per victim. But according to officials, there are also “some concerns”. Because the foundation hardly asks for evidence, some damages are awarded “while there is obviously no (total) damage due to the benefits affair”. Someone who did not get their driver's license will receive 20,000 euros in damage due to “loss of career”. Some claims are so broadly defined that “almost everyone” qualifies. The result: in practice, all parents in the pilot receive a “minimum amount” of 32,000 euros and usually an amount that is tens of thousands of euros above that, officials outline. In a response, the foundation denies these findings and says that the government did not know the story of the parents involved. Discussion with the foundation about these concerns “is going well and constructive”, the official concludes the note. That appears to be a miscalculation. The criticism went completely wrong with Laurentien and her people, according to an official note two weeks later. “Qualifications in [the foundation's response to criticism] are far from ours,” writes an official. The ministry should not interfere, according to the official summary of Laurentien's response. The damage route is “carried out without State interference [...]”. The state must accept that “the extent of the suffering and the impact [...] on individual people and families will be analysed solely by [the foundation] and will only be translated by it into lessons learned and adjustments in implementation.” And the state must assume from the foundation that victims' “detailed and sweeping” stories “provide an independent justification” for determining the damage. The princess is actually demanding control of the recovery operation, without government interference. An unsustainable position, according to officials. “The state is responsible for developing recovery policies for all affected parents. The foundation is not, nor is it seen as such by all parents.” Nevertheless, in the spring, intensive negotiations are underway with the foundation to 'scale' its recovery route — which is also very popular among politicians. Laurentien herself thinks she can help 25,000 victims by the end of 2027, out of the nearly 40,000 people recognized as victims. Officials doubt whether the foundation, which runs largely on volunteers, can handle that. The foundation's damage calculations are also so generous that officials expect an even larger influx, perhaps 51,000 people in the extreme scenario. The total amount of damage paid out could then reach 5 billion euros. Officials outline the risk that “dealing with damage will not be faster but more expensive”. In addition, according to the Director General of Supplements, the relationship with Laurentien and her foundation is “so difficult” that there is “insufficient basis” to make a large part of the recovery operation dependent on it. In May 2024, he advised against scaling up. Internal advice from the National Finance Inspectorate — which has a central role in monitoring government spending — is also negative. The department recommends that negotiations with Laurentien be stopped. Given previous experiences, the officials doubt whether her foundation will comply with agreements about setting compensation amounts. “The question must be answered beforehand: what if [the foundation] does not comply with the additional conditions. Is it out of control then?” According to the inspectorate, such a large order must also be publicly tendered, so awarding the job to the foundation “may be unlawful” .Nora Achahbar (NSC), De Vries' successor as Secretary of State for Charges in the Schoof Cabinet, will decide the (Equal) worthy Recovery Foundation on 16 July remit giving thousands of parents to help determine their compensation. Her predecessor De Vries decided to start the foundation's activities in the spring. pause, because she first wanted to make new agreements about how damage amounts are determined. But the House had almost all of them shortly thereafter. demanded that the cabinet would still conclude a contract with the foundation. (Equal) worthy Recovery will take over a large part of the recovery operation in the coming years — just not with Laurentien as chairman. Last week decided she resigned after reports about her attitude towards finance officials. She says she remains “fully committed” to the foundation's mission, “but no longer from the formal governance role that proved vulnerable”.
Princess Laurentien foundations rent property from prince
Princess Laurentien and Prince Constantijn run a social nerve center that fights from a building in't Hoenstraat for children's rights, for compensation for benefits victims, against climate damage and against low literacy. The foundations were laid in 2009. Then Laurentien set up a foundation with the aim of promoting debate on important social issues. The Missing Chapter Foundation saw the “morality issue about climate change” as the “missing chapter”. From this foundation, the princess visited the top of major companies with school classes. They discussed strategic dilemmas with each other. The “councils of children” she set up quickly also addressed common marketing issues: how can you sell your product better? The reactions were great: an adventure for kids, hats and shirts for the teenagers, interesting viewpoints and publicity for the companies with dozens of videos on YouTube. It turned out to be an effective network concept: an important part of the major Dutch companies quickly became sponsors of the foundation and Princess Laurentien acquired the 06 numbers of a variety of top managers in her smartphone. On the advice of an accountant, they set up a so-called limited partnership with a separate foundation as managing partner. As a result, they remained invisible to the outside world as owners when they founded two companies and purchased a monumental mansion in 2016. The building was built in the style of the Delft School, near Madurodam and Shell's headquarters. They're not going to live in it themselves, a company owned by Prince Constatijn buys it. Purchase price: 1.85 million euros.This building on the Haagse't Hoenstraat has grown into the home of three foundations and three prince and princess companies. The foundations receive 2 to 2.5 million in income annually, according to the figures they reported, mostly from subsidies from ministries and donations from individuals and companies. The concealing corporate structure was lifted at the end of 2018, when the prince and princess wanted to be transparent about their activities upon closer inspection. Since then, Prince Constantijn has visibly owned the office building and landlord of the foundations based there via a BV. The prince and princess founded the Number 5 Foundation in 2017, with the aim of creating an “independent thinking space” and “safe space” to “develop new ways of thinking and unconventional actions for a more inclusive, fair sustainable society”. Laurentien's father, former D66 politician Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, supported the initiative with a private loan of 80,000 euros. In the early years, the Number 5 Foundation paid more than a ton of rent per year to the prince's company. It is not clear what the other foundations and companies associated with prince and princess are spending on housing in't Hoenstraat because not all organizations disclose those expenses. It is clear that in 2020, the foundations paid at least 135,000 euros in rent and also an unknown amount of expenses. One of the foundations, with four employees, saw its rental costs in Prince Constantine's building increase eightfold within two years. Most organizations are not focused on profit, but the prince and princess's companies are, while some also appear to be linked to the charity foundations. Laurentien has two commercial companies located in the building. The Number 5 Foundation works “structurally” with “partner” House of Hi bv, an organizational consultancy firm owned by the princess. What this collaboration entails is not clear, questions from NRC this will not be answered. House of Hi's email address appears to be from Foundation Number 5. An important employee of Foundation Number 5 who deals with the allowance file has recently started working for Princess Laurentien's private company. The princess fulfills most board positions without receiving compensation. Only for the position at Foundation Number 5, you will be charged 75,000 annually. She declares through her own company. The charity foundations were active on the merger and acquisition front. In 2018, Missing Chapter bought a loss-making marketing agency in Amstelveen that develops teaching materials — a bad buy. In the following years, much was downgraded. The company was then resold to the FutureNL Foundation, of which Laurentien is also chairman. Missing Chapter eventually merged into the Number 5 Foundation, with no clear financial justification for 2022, the last year of its existence. As a result, the outside world cannot clearly see what happened to the donations that year. The latest published report also contains a typo, a spokesperson confirms, which means that the benefits are presented more than one and a half tons too low. According to the spokesperson, an accountant did approve the figures.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of September 5, 2024.
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