Benefits Automatic Income Settlement

Municipality of Utrecht

By applying the OIB-AIV process, we can better and faster process data on income of a resident receiving supplementary welfare benefits in the benefit administration. The effect is that the resident will no longer need to provide such income and related supporting documents, and any settlement or supplementary payment will be made faster and more unambiguously

Last change on 1st of August 2025, at 11:51 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Impactful algorithms
• Impact assessment: Uthiek
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Social Security

Begin date

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Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

For residents who receive other income alongside an assistance benefit, we would like to process the details of this income in a better and faster way. Residents will therefore have to submit fewer changes and supporting documents and will have a quicker and more unambiguous answer about the effect of the income on their social assistance benefit

Considerations

Results Uthiek Assessment: with the Automatic Income Settlement (AIV), we want to process income better and faster, and settle it where necessary, for our residents. The fact that residents no longer have to provide information about their financial situation themselves strengthens their information position and contributes to the value of power. In addition, the automatic settlement makes them better able to keep track of their financial situation. This has a positive effect on the value Autonomy. The process of processing and offsetting income on welfare benefits concerns a relatively vulnerable group of residents. Through the AIV, we ensure that this process of service provision happens in a better and faster way, so that we serve all people entitled to social assistance in Utrecht and contribute to their living situation. This contributes to the value Justice

Human intervention

The algorithm (with direct impact on Utrecht residents and their living environment) only serves as a source of information for an employee, who takes the right follow-up step based on this information and the context of the situation. This principle is included in our Utrecht framework Internal Guidelines for Algorithm Application.

Risk management

The Utrecht data scientists, Information and Process Advisors (IPA) and Decentralised Information Security Officers (DISO) within the Utrecht municipality have, in addition to the employees directly involved, a controlling and monitoring role in the application of the algorithm. By doing so, we want to prevent the following risks from occurring:- data leak due to the public availability of personal data of Utrecht residents- algorithm takes a decision entirely independently, without the intervention of an employee and without the interpretation of the relevant context of the situation- 'function creep' regarding data during the application of the algorithm, as a result of which the algorithm gives a distorted picture of what is going on. This can occur because the same type of data is used when applying the algorithm, and the algorithm uses that as confirmation of what comes out as information

Impact assessment

Utrechts Uthiek Assessment

Operations

Data

Details of welfare recipients, namely:

- NAW

- date of birth

- nationality

- income-specific data