As a result of the sixth Belgian governmental reform, the competence of child benefits was transferred from the federal level to the communities and regions (Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking community) on 1 January 2019. Flanders chose to integrate the family allowances in a larger family policy. This was an opportunity to enlarge the support of families and children and to make the system more efficient and convenient. Family allowances are now a pillar of an integrated family policy, to create opportunities and support active participation in the society and thus also to support a combination of employment and raising a family. We named it Groeipakket (‘growth package’).
The basic principles of the initiative were to:
- disconnect the socio-professional statute of the family allowances and depart from the right of the child, to ensure that working poor have the same rights as non-working poor;
- ensure that no child is left out;
- add new allowances to support participation;
- adjust to the new social reality.
An integrated family policy can be a means to ensure that every child receives the same opportunities. Every child is equal and will receive an equal birth allowance and an equal monthly basic amount. Before, there were ranking supplements and age supplements. This no longer exists for the new-born but to ensure that no child receives less than before the reform, the children born before 1 January 2019 keep the same basic amount they had been receiving in the federal system. All supplements are accessible to all children, regardless of their date of birth.
Automatically granting is as far-reaching as possible to ensure that the administrative burden for the families is reduced to a minimum. To achieve this, a large network of electronic data flows was constructed, to lower the risk of child poverty by selective support of low-income families. If the parents’ income is below the income limit, they will receive a supplement. It no longer depends on the socio-professional situation of the parent (e.g. unemployment, single parent or long-term illness). These were all supplementary conditions to the income limit before the reform.
The reform had to be budget-neutral, which means that no extra resources would be allocated. This called for new balances in horizontal (cost-compensating) and vertical (in the functioning of abilities) solidarity between families and children. Several supplements were inherited from the federal system, others inherited but slightly modified, and other supplements are new and had to be implemented.
On an organisational level, things had to change as well. Before the reform, there was a federal agency called FAMIFED and eleven child benefit funds. FAMIFED had a double role: it supervised and was also a public child benefit fund. Neither FAMIFED, nor the eleven child benefit funds are competent for supervision or payment of the child benefits from January 2019. A new Flemish agency (VUTG) that holds a public payment fund was founded and has been operating since January 2019. Only four private payment funds could be licenced, so the eleven negotiated and merged until they were four. A study showed that this construction would offer the best efficiency gains.
Because of the disconnection of the socio-professional statute of the family allowances, families are no longer connected to the payment fund that the employer of the father has chosen. The market has opened up thanks to Groeipakket and the five payment funds are now competitive. This transition is two-phased. Since 2019 all families that have a baby can choose to remain connected or change payment funds and from 2020 onwards, every family can make this choice. From January 2019 onwards Kind & Gezin has maintained the role of director of the Groeipakket.
The general objective of this project was to implement an integrated family policy so that every child can receive a custom Groeipakket. One of the pillars to achieve the integrated family policy is the Groeipakket application, provided by the government. This is the application used by all five of the payment funds to manage the Groeipakket files. The management of a Groeipakket file consists of the assignment of the rights, the calculation of the amounts and the payment. The advantages of a single application are cost-effectiveness, efficiency and innovation.
On top of that, the citizen can count on an equal treatment by all payment funds. The same logic is followed to assign the rights and exactly the same calculations are applied to the data. Also, one centralised application facilitates correct policy reporting. Finally, this also means that when a child is found in the population registers, but not in the application, action can be taken to ensure that this child will also receive its own custom Groeipakket automatically.
A second objective was to ensure that no child is left out. A specific objective that will contribute to this is the possibility for multidisciplinary teams to evaluate specific support needs to receive a care allowance. This was evaluated in the past by doctors employed by the Federal Public Service Social Security. They are now employed by Kind & Gezin Agency with the same tasks. Multidisciplinary teams on the other hand are teams who assist people with a disability. When a child applies for support through a multidisciplinary team, it does not necessarily mean there was also an application for a care allowance; this allowance is the only one that requires a request. So how can we find the children who qualify but haven’t requested a care allowance? To maximise the payment of the care allowance to the number of the children with specific support needs, the multidisciplinary teams are now also capable of evaluating this.