Flemish government ordered to pay full personal budget to woman with disability

The Flemish Agency for Persons with Disabilities (VAPH), part of the Flemish government, must pay a woman with a disability the full amount of her personal budget, the Ghent labour court has ruled.

The case concerns a young woman with a severe disability who applied to the VAPH in December 2016 for an increase in her personal budget ('persoonsvolgend budget' or 'PVB' in Dutch, ed.). The increase was granted, but the woman was placed on the waiting list for priority group 2 until the actual payment was made.

She was at the top of this waiting list to receive the full PVB when the previous Flemish government decided to introduce the experiment with temporary partial budgets. As a result, she received only half of the budget increase, and because of a new method of determining the budget, the total was lower than it would have been before.

Unsuccessful appeal

The woman appealed to the Ghent labour court, which ordered the VAPH to cancel the recalculation of the PVB and to pay the disabled person the full amount immediately. The VAPH appealed, but the court has now rejected that appeal.

According to the court, the experiment with temporary partial budgets represents an unjustified reduction in the level of social protection of the woman. After five years of waiting, she is still unable to buy all the care and support she needs. Moreover, it is unknown when this will be possible, as the experiment of partial budgets does not have a set end date.

It is not the first time the personal budget reforms have appeared in court. Earlier this year, the Council of State also rejected part of the experiment. And in 2023, an Antwerp court ruled that it violates the Belgian constitution.

17 billion euros

Although a quarter of the total budget of Flanders is spent on welfare - almost 17 billion euros - the sector faces still struggles with waiting lists for the allocation of the personal budget. At the end of 2023, 17,648 people were on the waiting list.

The new Flemish government aims to reduce the waiting list by increasing the welfare budget by 1.1 billion euros by the end of the next legislative period.

 

#FlandersNewsService | PHOTO © BELGA/AFP


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