Local authorities must continue to provide domestic help to people who need it, despite claims they don’t have the funding, the country’s highest administrative court said on Wednesday.

The Centrale Raad van Beroep said that councils can only change agreements about household help if there has been ‘objective and independent’ research into the time needed to ensure a house is kept clean.

The court was ruling on three cases brought by people whose entitlement to domestic help had been slashed when responsibility was shifted from national to local government.

‘Everyone now knows where they stand,’ Illya Soffer of home help agency Ieder(in) told broadcaster NOS. The ruling means that ‘councils have to prove that they had done a good job, rather than that clients have to prove they need more help’.

Implications

The ruling has major implications for local councils who provide domestic help for hundreds of thousands of people, mainly the frail elderly. They rely on the support in order to remain living in their own homes.

Also on Wednesday, the government’s socio-cultural think-tank SCP published a new report showing that decentralising home care services has not resulted in a surge in families and neighbours picking up the slack.

The government had hoped that by transferring responsibility to councils and slashing budgets by 40% families, friends and neighbours would clean and shop for the frail elderly and handicapped instead.

No network

However, research involving 5,000 people shows that many don’t want to ask friends and family for help and that councils have failed to attract the number of volunteers they had hoped for. In addition, four in 10 people do not have a network they can turn to for help, the SCP said.

The researchers warn councils that removing professional services does not mean the informal sector will jump in to fill the gap.