Receiving early signals on late payments

Municipality of Berkelland

In Berkelland, we offer help in the fight against poverty. An algorithm in the form of a web application is used for this purpose. The algorithm ensures that a signal about a resident's arrears reaches the municipality. To prevent them from getting into serious debt or being evicted, we try to help them as early as possible.

Last change on 31st of December 2025, at 10:18 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Impactful algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Social Security

Begin date

2021-01

Contact information

[e-mail]

Link to publication website

https://www.gemeenteberkelland.nl/privacy

Link to source registration

n.v.t.

Responsible use

Goal and impact

• Preventing poverty problems.
• Providing help as early as possible when signals of payment arrears appear.
• Preventing residents at risk of falling into debt situations increases.

Considerations

Under the Municipal Debt Assistance Act (Wgs), early signalling is a statutory duty for municipalities to actively approach residents with impending debt/poverty problems and offer help. Housing landlords, water companies, energy suppliers and/or health insurers alert us if they see their customers not paying their bills. They do not need their customer's permission to do so first. The companies and agencies signal if their own efforts do not resolve payment arrears, for example by making personal contact and offering a payment arrangement. These alert notifications are automatically forwarded to the municipality. Alternatively, creditors could manually submit the warning notification to the municipality, but this ultimately has the same outcome.

Data sharing is done in a secure manner: only necessary data is shared and the data is not visible to anyone other than designated staff. A resident can ultimately choose whether or not to use the municipal assistance offer.

Human intervention

The system independently (automatically) makes a number of choices, e.g. to send an email, letter or text message when payment is over €25. After the data matching process, there is a moment of human oversight and a check that that matching is correct. Residents are written to with an offer of help. The choice is up to the resident to make use of it.

Risk management

The 'Vroegsignalering' registration and information system is provided by xxllnc. They carry out regular security tests to check that the system cannot be hacked. Legal and other requirements regarding data protection (AVG) and information security (BIO) are met. Only authorised employees of team Voormekaar have access to the data.

Residents can indicate at any time that they do not wish to be listed in the system. Data are then immediately removed. In addition, residents can access the data at any time. The moment we remove the data from the system, no information on debt arrears remains with the municipality.

Legal basis

By amending the Municipal Debt Relief Act (Wgs), early signalling has been a statutory duty for municipalities since 1 January 2021. This law allows designated creditors to report payment arrears. Exchanging this data ensures that signals of debt problems reach the municipality earlier. As a result, help can be actively offered to prevent increases in debt.

Links to legal bases

• Municipal Debt Relief Act: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0031331/2022-01-01
• Regulation Social Domain Berkelland 2025: https://lokaleregelgeving.overheid.nl/CVDR737205/1
• Regulation Social Domain Berkelland 2026: https://berkelland.bestuurlijkeinformatie.nl/Reports/Item/66429c80-7e5a-4323-ae8b-074ea23e65b7

Link to Processing Index

Privacyverklaring - Gemeente Berkelland

Elaboration on impact assessments

DPIA to be conducted in 2026.

Operations

Data

Name, address, email address, any presence of resident minor children, notification of any payment arrears of more than 30 days with a housing association, utility company or health insurance companies, as well as the amount and duration of those arrears.

Technical design

The creditor makes a notification in 'Early warning'. Once a month, all new notifications are checked by an employee of the municipality. It then checks whether there are multiple debt arrears within one household. After this, the automated process with the algorithm stops. After this, the municipality, using the 'Early signalling' system, contacts the resident to offer help in a manner appropriate to the amount of arrears.

External provider

Xxllnc