The Breakthrough Method: What if Bureaucracy could work for you?

The most vulnerable people often get stuck the deepest in bureaucratic red tape. Their multiple and often integrated set of problems cannot be untangled by a highly pillarized and controlled world of care, cure and welfare provisions. The Dutch Breakthrough Method managed to find a way out. The method helps citizens and frontline workers legitimize exceptions to laws and regulations. It helps to find legal ground for making exceptions, but it also includes other values to take the argument outside the standard legal quarrel. And It collects data to learn to make the best exceptions the norm. Over the past ten years the method was implemented in over 100 Dutch municipalities, helping over 10.000 households. Last year we started to venture out abroad. In this talk we’ll compare the Netherlands to our recent Dubai experiences. What stands out? At the end of the day people are people, bureaucracies are bureaucracies…and with a little creativity they can actually work to help people.