The control and management system in place at the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) for benefit payments made under the Work and Income (Incapacity for Work) Act (WIA) has shown failings for many years, according to the Netherlands Court of Audit. Tens of thousands of benefit payments have been calculated incorrectly. The outgoing Minister of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) accepts the Court of Audit’s recommendations for improvement but, in the Court’s opinion, that is not enough; there are failings in the incapacity insurance system as a whole.
The Court of Audit had previously concluded that implementation of the WIA scheme was becoming impracticable owing to its complex regulations and resultant shortage of insurance doctors. The outgoing Minister of SZW believes she can improve the WIA’s implementation and make it less error prone. She is considering a revision of the daily wages system. The Court of Audit believes the WIA should be simplified more quickly. The political parties concerned should consider this in their negotiation of a coalition agreement for a new government. Correct implementation of the WIA is necessary if only to prevent uncertainty among incapacitated employees about their right to a benefit and the amount.
Sharp rise in WIA benefit errors caused mainly by COVID-19 measures
The figure shows the causes of the increase in incorrect assessments of incapacity benefit claims. The causes were: working from home, fewer quality controls, less time for training and induction and a change in the calculation of daily wages.
Errors and poor assessments do not lead to action
With many UWV staff working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of errors in the calculation of incapacity benefits rose sharply. Quality management failings meant benefits were calculated on poor socio-medical assessments, leading to persistent errors in benefit payments. Between 2020 and 2024, UWV made errors in the calculation of the average monthly income, daily wages and the benefit duration of tens of thousands of chronically incapacitated employees. In the same period, about a quarter of the assessment reports compiled by insurance doctors and occupational disability employment counsellors were unsuitable to verify whether or not the assessments were correct. It is therefore uncertain whether someone’s fitness for work and the duration and degree of their incapacity were assessed correctly. An overriding focus on eliminating WIA waiting lists and UWV and Minister of SZW’s disregard for the accuracy of benefit payments meant no one responded to the many errors. The Court of Audit comes to this conclusion in its report Errors in WIA benefits, blind to signals, citizens affected published on 3 December 2025.
The WIA is susceptible to errors on account of the complexity of the incapacity benefit regulations. UWV’s staff work with many different legacy IT systems and a lot of their work has to be performed manually. UWV gave priority to reducing long waiting lists for new assessments. The Minister of SZW has been reluctant to simplify the regulations and has also had a blind spot concerning UWV’s weak quality management. The minister’s agreement with UWV that nearly 100% of WIA benefits would be correct created a false sense of security.
Probably 32,770 people with an incorrect WIA benefit
The Court carried out its audit at the request of the then Minister of SZW. It concluded that UWV’s estimate that between 2020 and 2024 the benefits of 32,770 people had been too high or too low was probably realistic. It added that an estimated 400 people incorrectly did not receive a WIA benefit whereas 1,600 people incorrectly did.
During the COVID-19 crisis, UWV’s staff were obliged to work from home, fewer quality controls were carried out and there were weaknesses in the quality management system at the division concerned. The impact of errors on benefit recipients was accordingly not known, signals were ignored and many more errors were made than in the past. UWV has since launched a correction operation (based on risk analysis) to check the accuracy of daily wages in 43,000 benefit claims. It does not have the staff capacity necessary to check for all errors in all 252,000 new benefit claims made in 2020-2024.
Too little thought for the quality of UWV’s operational management
The problems audited at UWV brought dysfunctional patterns and reflexes to light in the management relationship between the Minister of SVW and UWV’s executive board. The ministry gave too little thought to the quality of UWV’s operational management. Information shared on service quality was too abstract and was not always questioned. The minister’s oversight had limited depth and focus. The Minister of SZW and UWV’s executive board did not have a common agenda for the WIA regulations, which caused problems for claimants.
Recommendations to improve management and oversight
According to UWV’s executive board, there have been fewer incorrect WIA assessments since measures were taken at the end of 2024 after the media highlighted the problems. In the Court of Audit’s opinion, however, there is no evidence that the measures are appropriate to reduce the number of errors to an acceptable level. It therefore recommends that the accuracy and verifiability of benefits and assessments be improved. UWV’s autonomous culture – quality management can vary from one division to another – provides a lot of scope for differences in quality between units and staff. More thought is given to assessing incapacitated employees promptly than to assessing them correctly. Signals that financial regularity is high incorrectly create the impression that few errors are being made. If UWV wishes to manage with a human touch it must first put performance of its statutory tasks in order. Ministerial oversight of UWV must focus more sharply on the financial risks that citizens face. Benefit claimants should also be able to verify that their benefits are plausible. This requires a fundamental amendment of the WIA, which would also improve its implementation.