Experts scold for basic child protection: Many weak points in the design
According to the draft (BT-Drs. 20/9092) the previous benefits of child benefit, citizen’s benefit, social assistance, child allowance and the benefits of the education and participation package are to be brought together and essentially processed by a newly created “family service” at the Federal Employment Agency (based on the previous family funds). The basic child benefit should consist of three parts: the income-independent child guarantee amount for all children and young people (corresponds to child benefit), the income-dependent and age-graded additional child allowance and the benefits for education and participation.
The fact that maintenance payments and maintenance advances are generally only taken into account at 45% when calculating the additional child allowance is intended to particularly improve the situation of single parents who receive citizen’s benefit and single parents with children who have not yet started school. The proposed law has repeatedly caused controversy in the traffic light coalition in recent weeks. The financing was particularly controversial – in the end there was an agreement. The federal cabinet finally decided on basic child welfare in mid-September.
The experts now invited to the hearing unanimously welcomed the basic idea of combining family policy benefits and thereby making them more easily accessible. However, they were skeptical about how this should happen. The main objections were that the government’s proposal would not eliminate multiple responsibilities and that families would continue to be unable to access benefits from a single source. In addition, according to experts, the planned design of the new “family service” would increase administrative costs and unnecessarily complicate the system.
Lots of criticism, warnings and appeals
Vanessa Ahuja from the Federal Employment Agency (BA) particularly called for more time to implement the law. The IT must be adapted, staff must be acquired and qualified and interface management must be set up in order to save families unnecessary journeys. This would not be feasible for the BA as of January 1, 2025. Representatives of the municipal umbrella associations also complained that basic child welfare was creating unnecessary parallel structures.
Other experts warned not to destroy the existing support structures that have been established in the approximately 1,000 job centers for families receiving citizen’s benefit. 100 family service positions could not replace these. Child poverty results from parental poverty, which is why you have to take the whole family into account and you cannot look after the children through the family service and the parents through the job center, says Diana Stolz, chairwoman of the operating commission of the municipal job center New Ways in the Bergstrasse district.
The representatives of welfare associations, in turn, were disappointed that the draft law does not yet provide for an increase in the socio-cultural subsistence minimum for children. Basic child security must be much more than an administrative reform, explained Andreas Aust from the Joint Association. “To combat poverty, families simply need more money.” But for the majority of poor children, the benefits will not change, he said.
Verena Bentele, President of the social association VdK Germany, sees the bundling of services as a very important goal of basic child welfare; because the current system does not work the way children and young people actually need it. She appealed to MPs to ensure in the deliberations that the unequal treatment of families with a lot of money and those with little money is abolished.
Bernd Siggelkow, director of the “Arche” children’s foundation, pointed out that poor children not only lack money, but also resources that they can fall back on, including a completely different education system. He also appealed to the MPs to ensure that the benefits reach the children directly.
Editorial team beck-aktuell, gk, November 14, 2023.
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From the beck-online database
Scheffer, Family benefits in the Bermuda Triangle between tax, administrative and social law, JAmt 2023, 272
Harich, Basic child security – legal concept and challenges in implementation, SRa 2023, 172
Metker: Basic child security – a paradigm shift, SRa 2023, 170
Drohsel, children in the right to secure their existence, NZS 2022, 533