The municipality of The Hague received too little budget for social assistance in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. This was ruled by the judge in a lawsuit between the municipality of The Hague and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. The judge based this decision on an assessment by Amsterdam Bureau for Economics (EBA), among other things.

EBA showed that the municipality may be disadvantaged by the structure of the model used to calculate municipal social assistance budgets. This model performs its calculations per household, for which it must assume that these households are isolated units. This can cause errors at the municipal level. Analyses commissioned by the municipality of The Hague show that the deficits are related to factors over which the municipality has no influence.

The ruling can be read here (in Dutch).