Employee Insurance Agency’s implementation and control of the export of benefit payments
The right to a Dutch benefit is not reserved solely to people who live in the Netherlands. People who live outside the Netherlands can also receive Dutch benefit payments if, for instance, they have worked for some time in the country. During that period they will have paid employee contributions and therefore built up a right to a benefit. In 2018, the Employee Insurance Agency paid out €400 million in benefits to people living outside the Netherlands. This is equal to about 2% of all the Agency’s benefit payments. The benefits were paid to some 38,000 people, living principally in Belgium, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Poland and Morocco.
Why are we carrying out this audit?
In principle, people who live abroad and receive a Dutch benefit have the same rights and duties as people who live in the Netherlands and receive the same benefit. Because these recipients live abroad, however, it can be more difficult under European regulations to provide them with the same service and implement the regulations in the same way as in the Netherlands. It is uncertain how the provision and control of benefit payments are organised and implemented abroad. We are investigating whether the Employee Insurance Agency’s provision and control of benefit payments abroad is of acceptable quality.
What are the audit questions?
We cannot carry out our audit in all 80 countries with which the Netherlands has a convention on the export of benefits. We have therefore selected a number of case studies. For these countries we will investigate the Employee Insurance Agency’s activities and performance by means of the following questions:
- What powers does the Employee Insurance Agency have to provide and control benefit payments abroad?
- What measures does the Employee Insurance Agency take to provide and control benefit payments?
- Does the Employee Insurance Agency make full use of its powers?
- What is the quality of the provision and control of benefit payments?
Where possible we will investigate the situation on location in two or three countries.
Current status of Insurance Agency’s implementation and control of the export of benefit payments
Audit in progress
Start of the audit: November 2020
Planned publication of report: autumn 2021