Abstract
Non-take-up of rights and services is a situation in which an eligible person does not benefit from one or more rights to which he or she is entitled. The Brussels Region in particular is confronted with the problem for several fundamental social rights. Analyses of individual situations, people's pathways and legal developments have shown specificities according to the benefits. Several factors emerge: legal changes in the granting and maintenance of social rights, the increase in the number of criteria and procedures to be completed, accessibility procedures and the growing complexity and instability of status in the pathways of people in precarious situations. A significant proportion of beneficiaries are discouraged and some professionals no longer feel able to verify or assert eligibility due to the growing complexity. Finally, the high level of digitalisation of services (public and private) prior to the pandemic which has accelerated since the first lockdown, reinforces the risk of non-take-up while there is a growing need for concrete, human help and simplification, as well as a deterioration of trust between citizens and the state.
Highlights
Brussels Studies, Collection générale administrative statuses are becoming more and more frequent and lead to an increased risk of a non-take-up of rights and precariousness
“Being aware of a right and not applying for it – especially when it comes to CPAS, which is the last resort, because there is a CPAS identity and a social attitude towards it – somehow does not mean that you are putting yourself in danger in terms of precariousness, but that you are reassuring yourself about your social position (...)
The socio-economic position or status in the e-Government data system may be momentarily wrong and people may fall into statistical categories such as “unknown to social security”21 or “other”
Summary
10 The typology of non-take-up developed for the survey was presented during each individual or group interview (with people in a situation of non-take-up or professionals involved). 15 For most of the rights studied in the survey, non-access is the most frequently experienced situation of non-take-up This can be explained by a multitude of administrative and institutional factors: loss of time when taking steps to find out about and meet the conditions, automatic redirections from one agency/organisation to another, lack of understanding of the procedure and the roles of each, communication problems, blocking of files, lack of follow-up of an application or file by the agent, exceeding the legal time limits for receiving a decision, lack of knowledge of the possibilities for legal remedies, etc. 23 Our survey shows that in a number of cases, the exclusion from rights can generate borderline situations between eligibility and non-eligibility These include, for example, a refusal to submit an application when a person goes to an agency, misinformation, unjustified withdrawal of the right (non-payment, requests for procedures from people unable to carry them out, etc.), or disproportionate expectations for the maintenance of a right (erroneous, restrictive or abusive interpretation by an agent, leading to a temporary or permanent sanction). These conditions induce a change in status, lead to the removal or deletion of people from administrative data and encourage (the risk of) non-take-up
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