Dutch gov't barely learning from major scandals, ignoring victims' needs: Ombudsman

The government hardly learns from the experiences gained from major recovery operations, such as those for the benefits scandal and the earthquake damage in Groningen. When setting up a recovery process, it continually reinvents the wheel. The government also doesn’t pay sufficient attention to what victims actually need, concluded National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen after studying 10 recovery operations.

According to Van Zutphen, the government doesn’t reuse approaches with which it gained extensive experience in previous cases. It also hardly consults the knowledge acquired.

The Ombudsman’s report, which will be published Tuesday, looked at how government agencies consider the victims' needs in recovery processes. It doesn’t happen enough, according to Van Zutphen, who spoke to government agencies and independent experts for the study.

For example, victims are almost never asked what they need before a recovery process. That is often determined from the “top down.” Also, during the process itself, too few government agencies remain in contact with victims to find out how they experience the operation, said the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman also accused the government of acting too bureaucratically in such processes. Government organizations spend a lot of time and attention on accountability and monitoring. While victims need a simple and fast process, according to the Ombudsman.

According to Van Zutphen, the fact that the government doesn’t put victims’ needs central and doesn’t learn from previous recovery processes is disastrous for the already “shaky trust” in the government. “The Ombudsman sees that some citizens in recovery processes become even more damaged than they already were because the recovery process is inadequate in all kinds of ways. Then disaster follows disaster.”

For the report, the Ombudsman looked at the recovery operations for the benefits scandal, earthquake damage, the fireworks disaster in Enschede, the flood in Limburg, Dutchbat III, the Noord-Zuid ine in Amsterdam, Chrome 6 in Defense, the personal budget arrangement, the Backpay benefit scheme, and Q fever.

The National Ombudsman also criticized his own actions. He also played or still plays a role in five of the ten operations. He urged the government to, from now on, talk to victims in advance about their needs and give these conversations a central role. “And don’t just have one conversation, but continue to talk throughout the entire process.” Also, share the knowledge acquired from now on.