Dutch political debate TV show BuitenHof, 14 November 2022
(Overview of 14 translated news items and 14 self-written (some of them published) articles)
How do the parents of the benefits scandal regain control of their lives after being left so out in the cold by the government? In Almere, they feel that the only experts in this field are the parents themselves. They know exactly what happened and are taking back control. Princess Laurentien van Oranje and Almere alderman Froukje de Jonge explain how they do this together with the parents.
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: Citizens caught up in the machinations of government and politics. The parents of the benefits scandal, they can relate to that. Many lost everything – their homes, their jobs, their children – and they were portrayed as fraudsters and liars. How can people who have had all that done to them regain control of their lives? In Almere, they want to break through that gigantic mistrust with a unique project, called “Number 90”. I am going to talk about it with Froukje de Jonge, alderman for healthcare in Almere, and with Princess Laurentien who is involved through her Number 5, her foundation dedicated to helping people who this has happened with. To give those people a voice. Ms De Jonge, Princess Laurentien, welcome.
Before the conversation starts, a short film clip of the opening of the project in Almere source NOS News 12-11-2022: “You have the letter of the law, and you have the spirit of the law. If you follow the letter of the law, then you can just have tunnel vision and do what you want to do. But if you follow the spirit of the law, then you look at people. Of course, that is a bit scarier anyway because then you have to do customisation and that involves emotion and feeling. There is actually no room for that in “professional” life.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: This was the opening, yesterday, of the joint project in Almere, place by, for and from people affected by the benefits scandal. Beautiful day yesterday, I think. […] Ms De Jonge? Overcoming that mistrust, how do you do it?
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “If only there was a simple solution to that. It starts, I think, by recognising that the distrust of many residents is there, and that as a government you have caused it yourself. “
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “So the government needs some kind of self-awareness?”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “Yes, change must come from the government.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “Ms van Oranje, your foundation already had experience with it didn’t it? With these women and men.”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “Well, it’s actually broader, it’s actually about the broader honest story that Mr Kuipers, health minister, was just talking about. Who has the knowledge? Who has the insights as to what is going on? I don’t have those, neither do people who haven’t experienced it. But they are the source, they are the experts and you put them in position in an approach, way of organising in which they are not in position. So there is inequality (that has to be resolved). If you apply that way of working, which I have actually applied all my working life, because I believe in it. I was brought up with the notion that you don’t think in ranks and positions, but in recognition of what is going on, and what do you want to achieve together? Then it makes perfect sense to help those affected get into position. I have done that with people who have difficulty reading and writing, children who have the insights, who have non-adults. What is special in this project in Almere is that a whole number of parents and younger children trust me to make sure the two (government and citizen) get and stay in position, without me taking over. I can best convey it this way. So I don’t pretend to have the answer, I just try again to listen very deeply to all those perspectives, also to the municipality, also to the implementing organisations and I guard that that source knowledge, as I call it, that that remains central. So it is broader.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “So equality, that’s what it’s about, the knowledge of those affected themselves, recovery experts, that’s what it’s about, right? What exactly is the modus operandi Ms De Jonge?”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “Well, there’s not really a modus operandi, I must say quite frankly.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “I saw beautiful rooms, where people felt comfortable, where people could be listened to.”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “To put it somewhat metaphorically, it is a journey you embark on together. Look, the moment you as a government realise that you are the culprit, i.e. that you caused this, with your system, with your rules, then you also know that you cannot be the solution. So you know you have to change, but you know that you yourself cannot be the solution. So then you can only be happy if you have such powerful people around you, in our case in Almere, who say, “Don’t call me a victim of the childcare allowance scandal. Because then you will victimise me again. I am recovery expert. I know how to be restored to who I was before you broke me.” What we do, that is not a method, but that is an attitude, I think, or a realisation. But what we do is listen very carefully to those people because they can make us a better government. Do you know what it is? These people know no fear. These have been through everything. They won’t let themselves be squeaked out again. So they just tell the government what they think. They are no longer afraid of anything. […] As a municipality, you deal with so much. Of course, you very often have people still thinking, “Yes, well, I still need them too. They are very powerful.” […] We are a monopolist. The government is a monopolist. So a citizen cannot choose either, to go somewhere else. So the government is a great power in society.”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “If I may. It almost feels uncomfortable that the council is being asked, “what is the modus operandi?” That is exactly what we are monitoring. That is not the modus operandi of the Almere municipality. It’s a neutral space that we guard, where the people who step in here, all kinds of parents who also recognise that in each other, who don’t see me as a princess, but who say, “You have other competences that we have.” I don’t see them as duped. I see them as powerful, strategic people who have a shared mission. We have a common mission, namely, let’s solve it. The beautiful thing is that the municipality of Almere, trusts me, puts trust in us as Number 5, and says, “We step into another space but we don’t take it over.” That is of course very special and that is a kind of dance together.
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “I sum up what you are saying, at the core it is about that listening, trust and equality.”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “I can listen deeper because I think from neutrality. I have no interests. I don’t think in boxes and structures. A municipality does, so that’s why it’s more complicated.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “It is also a very nice way of working. But in the end, of course, problems have to be solved. Can you do that too, Ms Laurentien?”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “Well, there again is the nuance. I think everything starts with deeper listening to each story. All those puzzle pieces, that’s actually where those honest needs arise. the honest story. You start puzzling those together. Only from honest need, and over all, the fact that people dare to speak out, what need they have. I speak to a lot of people in that neutral safe haven, refuge. Who say, “I am not yet ready to share my need because I have been traumatised for so many years. I’m not there yet.” So it also takes a lot of time, and a lot of steps to gradually bring that to the surface. It is also not like there is a solution or a Quick Fix.Namely, there are a lot of pieces in many people’s lives, all unravelling, and all getting into misery. These are all shards that all have to come back together. So you can sometimes fix a big thing, for example, make sure a girl doesn’t drop out of her studies, because she can’t actually, hasn’t been able to “breathe” for 10 years. That’s in the approach that someone says, for example : “I want a day of rest now. Then tomorrow I will have perspective to continue.” So it is not a quick fix approach.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens, to Froukje de Jonge: “That government you mentioned. You actually spoke very guiltily. Because you are the government, administrator, alderman in Almere. Do you feel guilty?”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “Yes, A report has been prepared. It is called “Unprecedented injustice”. If you have to redress unprecedented injustice, you have to go down unprecedented roads. So that is why your question of, “is this the solution/”, is an uncomfortable one. It is, I think, a start. Specifically, it is in a number of things. For example, in listening, which Princess laurentien talks about. But I always listened in the beginning to those stories of the parent of the child allowance scandal. I heard the story. Very serious. Unbelievable. So you start thinking, “this is not right, I want to hear the other side. This is not how it happened.” In hindsight. Actually, I had blind faith in the government. So the moment someone told me, “Yes but the judge also ruled against me, aand lle other agencies. Fraud. I was convicted of fraud, and reconfirmed.” At the time I was still thinking, “Then it must be true. Where there is smoke, there is fire. […] But now I believe them. Because it’s true every time. It’s super painful every time, but it’s true every time. What’s worse is that this is not something exceptional. This allowance scandal is extreme, but it is not an isolated thing. You can also find stories like this among the government’s WMO clients, in work and income. But people are also sometimes wronged in the area of spatial planning. So restoring trust by simply believing people is already a start.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “I want to dwell on this for a moment because you say yourself, “I am a representative of that government and I didn’t believe those people in the beginning either.” You don’t easily hear a government representative say that, a driver. In the sense of: “I am guilty and we made big mistakes.”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “Well, look, that’s possible, I don’t know, but I do know that it is. The childcare subsidy scandal shows that.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “Wouldn’t it be good if public servants were better able to admit their mistakes?”
Almere (CDA) alderman for social welfare, Froukje de Jonge: “Well I really do think the childcare subsidy scandal is a blessing in that sense, that it has had to open the eyes of all government officials after all. I see that around me as well. So I really don’t pretend to be better than anyone else. The only question is, what will you do with it next? Because you have to have that awareness of I as a government representative have to change. We want to change the system, but the system, that’s people. People are not a thing. So how should we do it? To begin with, unreservedly listen to the people you have wronged and leave to them how to fix it. What they all start with is saying, “I want to take back control of my life.” You don’t say that, I think, when it comes to, how you want to recover. I don’t say that either. Because we are in control of our lives. Only when that is taken away from you, and the government as a powerful monopolist, can do that, then it becomes very important in your life. So then you start creating a place. we did that in Almere. This place was created by the affected people themselves. They open the door for us, the government, and say, “Come bennen, you may listen to me and you may help me solve my debts to lead me back to work, etc, etc.”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “May I nuance that? We have set up a space. so that is not the municipality. So the “we” is outside, in a neutral space. that’s where the affected people have allowed me, so the Number 5 foundation from no interest may help and support them. Everyone does what they are good at. One furnishes, that’s me, the other who has the insights, I don’t. That’s how you actually build a whole team. The most important thing is to listen deeper. That you start allowing this in a completely different way. Because it’s not that easy yet. Froukje calls it painful. It’s not easy for people from government organisations to observe, “I always thought I got it. That’s how I set it up.” But then it actually wasn’t. It’s just very painful. Professionals are people too and so it chafes that you also have to facilitate the conversations. I often do that, and it clashes there too. I want to make sure that the human logic that doesn’t fit with that system logic come together. That dialogue, you have to track that down. You have to do that in a neutral space.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “It is a wonderful initiative and at the same time it deals with a politically extremely sensitive subject. A cabinet fell on it. Is that something that concerns you, as a member of the royal family? Or that you might even think, “Oh, I have to watch out”?”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “The important thing is to stay very close to myself. It’s about that principled modesty. I don’t have an answer. I don’t have a solution. I can only help facilitate and guard the neutral space, so that the logic from the human being who is at stake, that they are trusted in that, “What you say is true. It is right.” That those are multiple voices, that everyone has a piece of the puzzle, that’s what Number 5 guards.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens:”It is about people and not about politics and not about any suspicion from The Hague?”
Laurentien van Oranje, Director-Treasurer Number 5 Foundation: “No, it’s about solving this together, but being mindful, and this is so beautiful in working with Almere, that Almere says, “We don’t have the answer.” Then you have to grow it from the bottom up. on that, they have relied on us, to organise that. That is very special.”
Host Pieter Jan Hagens: “Number 90 so, in Almere. good luck.”
