Fatma Çapkurt awarded grant for research into proactive services in income support facilities
Dutch civil society coalition ‘Over Informatie Gesproken’ (Talking About Information) recently selected eight grant applications to improve information between government and citizens. Fatma Çapkurt, Assistant Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, was one of the successful recipients.
The Dutch government provides help to citizens who need income support through a system of benefits, allowances and facilities. Citizens are generally required to apply for these facilities themselves. The problem, however, is that some citizens are unaware of which facilities they are eligible for – or who are aware, but do not apply because of fear or mistrust perhaps. This underutilisation of allowances is widespread. Recently, for example, the Centraal Planbureau (Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, CPB) reported that more than one billion euros in allowances (rent allowance, care allowance and supplementary child benefit) is left unused.
In the coming months, Dr Çapkurt will investigate the question of possibilities within the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Dutch General Administrative Law Act (Awb) for proactive services by administrative bodies to reduce this underutilisation of income support facilities. Her research, entitled 'From a reactive to a proactive government: room for proactive services in the GDPR and the Awb', will build on reports published by the National Ombudsman on this issue, including the report ‘Met te weinig genoegen nemen’ (Settling for too little).
More information (in Dutch) on the seven other successful grant applications is available here.