Spring Memorandum OCW: investment in emancipation and basic skills, also cuts

The government is allocating a total of €22.9 million extra over the next three years to improve the safety of lhbtiq+ persons. In addition, an extra €13.4 million is available annually to combat violence against women and an extra €100 million will go towards basic skills in secondary education. This can be read in the Spring Memorandum published today. Besides these investments, a number of cuts from the previous cabinet period and the coalition agreement will also be implemented.

With the extra money for the safety of lhbtiq+ persons, the cabinet wants to promote acceptance among young people, discuss mental problems among lhbtiq+ persons and launch campaigns that counter discrimination and disinformation, among other things.
To further tackle violence against women, there will be more commitment to prevention nationwide. OCW is pulling together with the ministries of J&V, SZW and VWS in this. The detailed plans will come later this year.

Language and maths

Recent progress figures show that strengthening the language and numeracy skills of students entering the MBO from the vmbo is necessary. Therefore, from 2027/2028 to 2030/2031, a total of an extra €100 million will be allocated to basic skills in mbo, in order to provide students with extra guidance to eliminate disadvantages.  

Archives

In addition, €4.1 million will go to the Central Archive on Special Jurisdiction (CABR) for a temporary facility. Anyone with a research interest, such as relatives of victims, can do digital research in this war archive in 11 Regional History Centres under certain conditions.

To meet the new obligations in the Archives Act and create more training opportunities in the archives sector, an additional €3.8 million will be made available in 2026 and €7.3 million annually from 2029. Most of this will go to the National Archives to carry out the additional tasks that follow from the new Archives Act.   

Price update

Last Budget Day, it was announced that cuts would be made to the so-called price adjustment for government-wide issues. The price supplement is the compensation the government pays for increased prices due to inflation. How much less price supplement OCW receives will be announced next week when the First Supplementary Budget is published.  

Grants

In addition, the coalition agreement set aside less money government-wide for various subsidies, for OCW a total of €18.9 million less per year from 2027. Next week on publication of the First Supplementary Budget, the fill-in will be announced.

Investments

This Spring Memorandum does not yet incorporate the more than €1.5 billion the government plans to invest in education, research and media. That money is intended, among other things, to reverse various cuts made by the previous cabinet. Before the summer and on Budget Day, it will become clear how the cabinet wants to allocate this money to the plans in the coalition agreement.