Transforming Social Care (GaaP)

How can we make public services more accessible and efficient via technology?

The Netherlands is a society where the State plays an instrumental role in ensuring the well-being of its citizens through social services known today as the social domain (sociaal domein). However, with a 35% drop-out rate on social benefit applications due to high service complexity, as well as up to eight-fold administration costs for every benefit offered, it is urgent that we rethink how public services are navigated and delivered. This project explores how digital governance solutions may reinvent a sector that stands out for its high spending and high pressure for service performance as well as fraud prevention.

Using Haarlem as a test case, we explore what digital transformation in the social domain might entail and how technology can empower and assist service applicants, as well as service providers. This project is the second of a series of 4 prototypes, part of ‘Government as a Platform’ (GaaP), a digital transformation initiative for the public sector commissioned by the Municipality of Haarlem and the Union of Dutch Municipalities (VNG).

This project focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals: