Social security implementers | Netherlands Labour Authority

Social security laws (for unemployment, disability, benefits, old-age pension, etcetera) are administered in the Netherlands by the SVB (Social Insurance Bank), the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) and the municipalities. The Netherlands Labour Authority supervises how these bodies carry out this implementation and what the results (effects) are.

Supervision

The Labour Authority does not consider how a single agency performs, but rather the performance and results of joint implementers. This is also known as supervising the work and income system. It works as follows:

Based on a risk analysis, the Labour Authority investigates a particular question or topic across multiple agencies, collects findings (facts) from them in a scientifically sound manner and, based on these findings, makes statements on how the system broadly works in respect of the aspect under investigation and what the results are.
The Labour Authority reports are fed back to the implementing agencies and presented to the minister or state secretary of SZW. The SZW ministers are thus kept informed about bottlenecks in the implementation, can inform the Senate and the House of Representatives about it and adjust the implementation where necessary.
In addition, the Labour Authority can investigate a single specific implementer (UWV, SVB or a municipality), but only if requested by SZW ministers. Such an investigation culminates in a ruling on a particular aspect of how that particular implementer works. As well as the reports, the Labour Authority publishes other products, such as articles, infographics, videos and presentations.

Partnership

Since 1 January 2015, with the introduction of the Participation Act, municipalities have had more opportunities than before to take into account the interaction with the Youth Act, the Social Support Act (WMO) and the Appropriate Education Act when implementing this Act. These 4 laws make up the social domain to be implemented comprehensively by municipal authorities. Following this, it was decided that central government supervision of this implementation would also be comprehensively implemented.

The 5 national inspectorates involved (Youth Care Inspectorate, Health Care Inspectorate, the Netherlands Labour Authority, Education Inspectorate and the Security and Justice Inspectorate) are giving substance to this within the partnership Supervision of the Social Domain/Cooperative Youth Supervision (TSD/STJ). On the one hand, this supervision is aimed at investigating contingencies related to youth care and social support, often followed by a recommendation to the municipality concerned. On the other hand, this supervision looks at the functioning and results of the implementation of the social domain as a whole (system supervision). Again, the responsible ministers are informed of the inspectorates' findings.