Bertelsmann Foundation: Education and Participation Package Reaches Only a Fraction of Eligible Children

The Bertelsmann Foundation has therefore set the number of approvals in relation to the number of people receiving the respective social benefits and derived an estimate from this. How many children and adolescents are fundamentally entitled to the BuT and how many actually use it cannot be determined exactly – there is no corresponding statistic.

Major Regional Differences in Uptake

The regional differences are considerable. In Hamburg, only nine percent of eligible six- to 15-year-olds receive the monthly 15 euros for club memberships or music lessons. "This puts Hamburg together with Rhineland-Palatinate at the bottom nationwide – while in Schleswig-Holstein it is 59 percent." In Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate as well, the participation benefit reaches only about every tenth eligible child, according to the foundation. "Why the differences are so large cannot be explained even by the Bertelsmann Foundation."

The picture is somewhat better for school supplies: 78 percent of six- to under 15-year-olds whose parents receive basic income support receive the 195 euros per year for school bags, paint sets, and notebooks. For shared school meals, however, only around 37 percent of those eligible nationwide actually use the benefits. Among children and adolescents receiving social assistance or benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, uptake is overall even lower.

Bureaucracy as the Central Obstacle

The Education and Participation Package was introduced in 2011 by the then federal government of CDU/CSU and FDP. It includes, among other things, 15 euros per month for sports and culture, 195 euros for school materials such as school bags, paint sets, and notebooks – split across two school semesters – as well as the costs of lunch at school. In addition, excursions from school and daycare, the school commute, learning support, club sports, music lessons, and holiday activities are funded. Children and adolescents from families that receive certain social benefits are eligible.

The Bertelsmann Foundation sees the cause primarily in bureaucracy. "Die Antragsverfahren seien von Bundesland zu Bundesland sehr unterschiedlich – dicke Formulare und umfangreiche Nachweispflichten erschwerten vielen Eltern die Beantragung erheblich," the analysis quotes the foundation. Expert Antje Funcke of the Bertelsmann Foundation emphasizes: "Die geringe Nutzung liegt nicht daran, dass die Kinder keinen Bedarf hätten. Vielmehr ist der Betrag klein und der Weg dorthin sehr aufwendig."

The Foundation's Demands

The foundation therefore demands that benefits be paid out in the future without an application, that responsibilities be bundled, and that authorities be better digitally networked. From the foundation's perspective, easier access would simultaneously relieve the burden on municipal administrations. However, the extent to which individual federal states have already digitized their procedures cannot be discerned from the available data.

Gaps in the Data

In addition, there is a fundamental data problem. Neither is it recorded nationwide how many children and adolescents are actually eligible, nor how many families receive housing allowance or the child supplement. "Wegen fehlender Daten ist nicht bekannt, wie viele Kinder aus Familien mit Wohngeld- oder Kinderzuschlagbezug die Leistungen tatsächlich nutzen," the authors criticize. This means it remains unclear to what extent the BuT has actually had an impact over the past one and a half decades.