Kohesio: discover EU projects in your region

project info
Start date: 1 October 2018
End date: 30 September 2021
funding
Fund: European Social Fund (ESF)
Total budget: 379 952,00 €
EU contribution: 189 976,00 € (50%)
programme
Programming period: 2014-2021
Managing authority: Agentschap SZW (onderdeel van Ministerie van SZW)

Department of Social Affairs and Work, Municipality of Groningen

In Groningen, around 10,000 households are dependent on welfare benefits. Most beneficiaries would like to get back to work. The participation law should be a flywheel for clients to help them further towards outflows to regular work, social participation and well-being in the broad sense of the word. In practice, this does not appear to be the case. In accordance with Article 9(1)(b) of the Participation Act, it is the municipality which determines what is best for the person entitled to assistance and the person entitled to assistance is obliged to accept that support. With Bijstand op Maat (BOM), a project that allows the municipality of Groningen to experiment with the Participation Act, we investigate whether the inclusion of social assistance beneficiaries improves if we give clients more trust, less rules, more room for action, a financial incentive or intensive tailor-made guidance. 4 interventions will be deployed: 1. Exemption from labour and reintegration obligations 2. Intensification of assistance and tailor-made guidance by experienced experts (objective: increasing self-effectiveness) 3. Release of earnings from employment 4. Freedom of choice between the above-mentioned three interventions This experiment makes scientific research more known about the behavioural effects of these interventions. We investigate and assess these behavioural effects on the effect on sustainable outflows. There is a better understanding of what works, for whom and under what conditions, which is valuable for policy. Together with other municipalities that are experimenting, the research results are pooled. The insights are made available to municipalities and to the House of Representatives.

Flag of Netherlands  Netherlands