Onbegrip voor uitvoeringskosten bron van ongekend onrecht

This article discusses the very critical findings of the Parliamentary Interrogation Committee on Childcare Allowances ("Ongekend Onrecht", Van Dam Committee). Due to an exclusive focus on fraud prevention many innocent and low income receivers of childcare allowances were forced to “pay back” large amounts of money, which caused enormous personal tragedies. Meanwhile the Rutte III cabinet resigned because of this government failure. A major reason for this failure is that legislation on the allowances did not take the huge execution costs into account. Therefore, in order to avoid such damaging failure in future, formal reporting on all expected execution costs of future policy proposals with respect to taxes and social benefits should be institutionalized. These include the costs for both the government and for tax payers and receivers of benefits (Cost Effect Reporting). In addition, independent advice from experts must be institutionalized within the executing organizations and there must be permanent feedback from the executive to the legislative and judiciary powers.