Schoof's Ministry willing to pay €300,000 fine to stay on Binnenhof during renovations
Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s Ministry of General Affairs tried everything in its power to stay on the Binnenhof for as long as possible. The Ministry was even willing to pay a fine of 300,000 euros to let civil servants work among the renovations for longer, Omroep West reported based on documents requested through the Open Government Act.
The Ministry of General Affairs was the last to vacate the Binnenhof, which is undergoing major renovations. The complex was no longer fire-safe, and the Ministry’s workers had to leave. But Schoof’s Ministry kept postponing the move because the digital security at its temporary home, the Ministry of Home Affairs, was not up to the standards of protecting State secrets.
The municipality of The Hague finally had enough in August last year and ordered all civil servants to vacate the Binnenhof by September 18 or face a fine of 100,000 euros per week.
Even then, the Prime Minister’s Ministry needed more time. Emails, memos, and meeting minutes show how civil servants scrambled for ways to stay on the Binnenhof without paying the fine.
According to the broadcaster, the Ministry was prepared to sacrifice parts of the complex housing General Affairs in the event of a fire. They searched for administrative loopholes to avoid a fine, and repeatedly asked the municipality of The Hague to change its mind and give them more time.
On August 12, the Ministry wrote to the municipality of The Hague, asking the mayor to refrain from imposing the fine. The Ministry cited “the significant interests of the state” and called it “disproportionate if enforcement were to be taken.” Some staff had to maintain access to the Binnenhof in the “national interest and state security,” the Ministry said.
But Mayor Van Zanen stuck to his guns and the deadline of September 18.
The Ministry concluded that approximately 35 civil servants won’t be able to leave the building until October 9, three weeks after the deadline. It decided it was willing to pay the resulting fine of 300,000 euros.
In the end, it didn’t come to that. The Ministry moved almost all of its employees from the Binnenhof on time. A few security guards and about ten people remained to decommission the extra-secure IT systems, but because they weren’t doing office work and were in the process of moving, the municipality refrained from fining Schoof’s Ministry.
