Analysis of the Allowance and Affair

Did a shortage of money cause the problems of allowance parents? The judge doesn't know, Mariëtte Hamer does

It must be confusing for allowance parents: two studies in one week with, apparently, opposing conclusions. Were children taken away from their parents or not as a result of the allowance affair?

Marten van de Wier and Eva StamApril 1, 2025, 10:00 PM

The mother of a 9-year-old girl is struggling with mental health problems. Her father has a bad relationship with his children and no permanent home. Mother, an emergency home. The parents are separated and do not speak to each other. They have rental debts.

All these cases are factored into the children's judge's decision to take the girl away from her parents. But whether the benefits scandal partly caused these parents' problems? That is not evident from the judge's ruling.

The example comes from the Council for the Judiciary's report, published on Monday. Here, the organization of all courts and courts in the Netherlands analyses the actions of judges when evicting children in the benefits affair. What does this research add to all the reports that have already appeared?

Never the only reason

The financial problems of parents were never the only reason for removing children from home in the benefits affair, concludes the Council. This conclusion seems difficult to reconcile with the report of the committee led by Mariëtte Hamer, published last week. He stated that the benefits affair played a role in all of the more than 3,500 relocations.

But there is really little discussion about the point that the Council is emphasizing. Indeed, Hamer also stated that poverty should not be taken into account in decisions by the children's judge and youth counselors.

However, there is debate about the cause of the problems that the parents faced and are struggling with. Hamer states that the image was wrongly created that there were already many problems in those families. In reality, a large number of families had no (or at most limited) problems when the tax authorities wrongly began to recover money.

It was the benefits affair that caused parents to lose their jobs, were unable to arrange childcare and sometimes even ended up on the street. Little attention was paid to a shortage of money as the underlying cause of these problems.

Debts not a topic of conversation

The report of the Council for the Judiciary also supports this conclusion. The Council examined nearly four hundred files. Only three quarters of them mention financial problems with their parents, and only one in ten financial problems due to the benefits affair.

But the fact that they were not described by youth counselors and judges does not mean that those problems were not there. Youth welfare agencies themselves previously stated, in a reflection on their actions, that debts were not a fixed topic of discussion. Signs of a shortage of money, such as the lack of toys or dirty living spaces, were seen as signs of poor parenting. Where youth counselors did see and describe the money problems, they were not always discussed in court.

This makes it little surprising that the Council for the Judiciary concludes that “financial problems caused by the benefits affair” are mentioned “relatively little” by children's judges as a reason for the eviction, and in any case never as the sole reason. On the basis of the files, the Council cannot say whether the other reasons mentioned are due to money stress.

Judges are too uncurious

The juvenile and family judges, who authorize a forced eviction, concluded two years ago that they relied heavily on lecturing youth protection specialists at the time of the affair. While judges must be “curious” and actively investigate the facts at the hearing. They also need to give parents more space to tell their side of the story.

The same attitude was established in a reflection by administrative judges in childcare allowance cases between parents and the tax authorities. They followed the far too hard line of the tax authorities. Judges should investigate all relevant facts and personal circumstances more thoroughly in each case.

In short: children's and administrative judges have looked critically in the mirror before. The Hamer Commission shows that the benefits scandal may not have been the reason for the judge to evict children from home, but that it was the underlying cause of the problems for many parents. The conclusion of the Council for the Judiciary adds little to these insights.

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