17,000 children stayed so long abroad in 2017 that Nav stopped paying child allowance. The reason for their foreign stays were not recorded.
According to the rules, the payment of child allowance will cease when children have stayed abroad for more than three months. According to Aftenposten newspaper, this happened with the children’s allowance for 17,000 children last year.
This included both those who reported and did not report the stays abroad to Nav.
The 17,000 from last year is a significant increase from 2016, when the figure was approximately 11,000 children. For 2015, the figure was approximately 10,000 children.
Nav had no list of destinations, citizenship or country of origin for those who were receiving the benefits or had them stopped, and for the time being there are no plans to introduce a register for this.
“The introduction of such a systemic change would be costly and is currently unplanned,” said Anne-Louise Nore, Head of the Office at Nav.
Oslo municipality believes Nav is holding information that could help track children who have disappeared and reveal offences, and have applied for exemption from confidentiality in the ‘Nav Act’. The application will be processed during April.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
