4.2 Homophobic bullying Following an incident in Utrecht, the Gay Krant (the Dutch gay community’s main news medium) set up a homophobic harassment hotline. It was inundated by calls. The National Ombudsman examined the problems and concluded that the crucial issue was the gay community’s confidence that the authorities would take action (where appropriate, under criminal law) in cases of homophobic bullying. Consultation between the Public Prosecution Service and the National Ombudsman led to the issue of guidelines, presented on 9 December to the editor in chief of the Gay Krant. The credit card sized document states what victims and the police, justice system and burgomaster (mayor) can reasonably expect each other to do when such bullying occurs. An important background factor is the action taken by the Public Prosecution Service to tighten up procedures for dealing with cases of homosexual and other discrimination. It is important for gay people – and for others suffering discrimination-related harassment – to know what they can reasonably expect the authorities to do in cases of harassment and to be confident that action will indeed be taken where necessary. 4.3 Self-employed people without staff The trust of many people who started up one-man businesses while on unemployment benefit was severely shaken when the Tax Department and the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) – acting in line with the government policy of linking up databases – compared information they had provided for the calculation of their tax deductions as self-employed people with data they had supplied on hours worked for unemployment benefit.(23 ) The authorities proclaimed in the media that large-scale fraud had been taking place and imposed thousands of sanctions under administrative and criminal law. An investigation by the National Ombudsman revealed that, in fact, systematic errors had been made in comparing the data, since many UWV work coaches had given incorrect information to the people concerned. The written information supplied to them by the UWV also proved to be incomplete or inaccurate. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) insisted that the law was clear and that it was up to people to act accordingly. A parliamentary motion to reduce the consequences of the database linkage and automatic recovery of benefit payments was passed with all-party support. Political squabbles led to two rounds of case reviews by two different committees based on political compromises between the House of Representatives and the minister. These produced a remarkable result from the point of view of public confidence: in 65% of cases, the decision to impose sanctions proved to have been wrong.(24 ) This is an extremely high figure in comparison to the outcome of normal objection and appeal procedures and confirms that there was indeed something wrong with the way the UWV assessed these cases. Recent trust-related cases | 14 Pagina 13

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