Minister seeks inquiry into benefit fines for non-Dutch surnames

People with non-Dutch surnames get fined more often and more harshly by the benefits agency UWV’s fraud unit, according to an internal analysis the agency’s board has had since December, AD and current affairs programme EenVandaag reported on Monday.

Social affairs minister Hans Vijlbrief said he wants the claims thoroughly investigated and the UWV to take appropriate measures. “Your surname or background must play no role at all in whether you get a fine or how high that fine is,” he told AD.

The two outlets based their joint investigation on confidential documents and interviews with more than 10 current and former staff, including managers, at the fraud unit, which employs around 600 people.

The analysis divided 1,682 case files into Dutch and non-Dutch surnames. In the region covering Alkmaar, Amsterdam and Utrecht, 44% of the people in the files had a non-Dutch surname, but they received 74% of the fines.

In the southern district, which includes Heerlen and Eindhoven, the figures were 36% and 71%. Because their fines were also higher, that group paid 98% of the total there, although fewer files were examined in that district.

The authors recommended further research, but this was never carried out, according to EenVandaag.

Country of origin
A 2015 work instruction for detecting fake employment contracts also listed the applicant’s “country of origin” as a possible risk characteristic. When a court asked about the document, the UWV denied in an official letter that it used risk characteristics at all, AD said.

After 2020, a thin line was drawn through the criterion, but it remained legible until at least mid-2026. “I have never seen such clear evidence that it happens as in this document,” lawyer Ayhan Kara, who obtained the uncensored version, told AD. He is considering filing a criminal complaint with the public prosecution service.

The UWV says the criterion was never used, was officially removed in 2020 and has now been taken out of all documents.

Current and former staff also described racist remarks in the fraud unit. Managers born outside the Netherlands were referred to as the “Arab League”, and during a case meeting someone said the solution was “to kick all Moroccans out of the country”.

Political reaction
MPs from both coalition and opposition parties reacted angrily. Stephan Neijenhuis of the centrist D66 told AD there was possibly “institutional racism” at the agency.

Mariëtte Patijn of the opposition party Pro said the revelations reminded her of the childcare benefits scandal, in which thousands of parents were wrongly labelled fraudsters by the tax office. “It is not systems selecting wrongly by accident, it is the UWV’s own people,” she told AD.

Dogukan Ergin of the left-wing, multicultural party Denk said it fitted a pattern. “First it was the tax office, then [student finance agency] DUO, now the UWV again: if you have a migration background, you are distrusted and dealt with more harshly,” he said.

According to AD, the minister was only informed of the analysis after the paper put questions to the ministry. The UWV told broadcaster NOS it had informed the ministry in January.

Apologies issued 
Abdeluheb Choho, who became the UWV’s chairman on September 1, said in a statement that it was reprehensible that some staff still made discriminatory remarks to one another. “We apologise to everyone who feels discriminated against or has been treated in a racist way,” he said.

However, the agency said in a statement that the analysis was not scientific research, and that its data and method were not suitable for drawing conclusions about structural unequal treatment. A separate external study into equal treatment is due later this year.

The UWV has asked anyone who has experienced discrimination by or within the agency to report it to integriteit@uwv.nl.

In 2024, a reader who took part in a DutchNews survey on discrimination said UWV staff had told them to go back to their own country when they applied for unemployment benefits.