I welcome the opportunity to make a brief opening statement. As requested, I have already provided the committee with an update on the conclusions contained in the chapters. Arising from decisions by Government on the Department's remit, it is now the largest Department with a budget of €21 billion in 2012. It has three clear functions: first, provision of income support; second, activation support and services; and third, control of fraud and abuse. I will make a brief comment each of these functions.
When I last addressed the committee in September 2011, I commented on high levels of activity and this continued in 2010. More than 1.4 million people were in receipt of weekly social welfare payments, which were paid in respect of a little under 2.2 million beneficiaries of the Department's schemes. The biggest issue the Department's staff had to contend and cope with during this period was the surge in jobseeker's claims. This reflected the changing economic climate. This change also had significant impact on both income to and expenditure from the Social Insurance Fund. During 2010, churn in the live register was 1.1 million. In other words, we dealt with 550,000 new claims as against 554,000 sign offs, compared to 1.12 million in 2009. This represents continuing record levels of activity. The average live register in 2010 increased to 442,000 compared to 398,000 in 2009 and the share of long-term unemployment increased rapidly from 22% at end 2009 to 36% at end 2010. While this volume of activity presented significant challenges for us in terms of processing claims, we have made significant progress in responding. Processing times for these claims are now well within operating target.
I am aware, however, that the time taken to process claims across several schemes remains one of the greatest areas of concern to the public and to the committee. I acknowledge that for certain schemes, especially those which require medical and means assessment, the Department's performance currently falls considerably behind the targets in place. I am acutely aware of this and I am working with my colleagues throughout the Department to address it. I am keen to provide assurance to the committee in respect of this area. I point to the significant improvements that have been evidenced during the past two years in the timescales for processing jobseeker's, pensions, child benefit, and illness benefit payments. Productivity improvements have come from a mixture of improved processes, new systems and targeting of some additional resources in appropriate areas. Our experience indicates that in a period of continuing high demand it takes time and effort to deliver real improvements in processing times. I am confident, however, that with the same approach and mixture of tools we will achieve improvements during the coming months in the schemes with which we are currently experiencing difficulties.
Since I last addressed the committee, the Department has seen considerable change. The community welfare service of the HSE, made up of 1,100 staff, was integrated with the Department on schedule in October 2011. The employment services and community employment divisions of FÁS, comprising more than 700 staff, were transferred to the Department on schedule on 1 January 2012. Department organisation structures and systems have been revised to incorporate these new staff and the functions they perform and integration of services is ongoing at an operating level.
As part of our process of integration and as committed to in the project plan for the establishment of the national employment and entitlements service, the Department has developed and is implementing a new service model. The purpose of this new service model is to address identified deficiencies in the State's approach to the provision of employment and income support services and, in doing so, to expand and improve the quality of the employment services provided to unemployed people; to draw a clear linkage between an individual's entitlement to income support and his responsibility to engage with the State's employment services; and to enhance the engagement with employers, especially at a local level. Good progress has been made and I have provided detail in the update already sent to the committee.
Given the scale of operations of the Department, it is not surprising that the subject of control is covered in five of the eight chapters in the Comptroller and Auditor General's annual report. The committee will recall that the Department's fraud initiative was launched in September 2011. The initiative takes a revised and renewed approach to the challenges posed by social welfare fraud. Structures and oversight mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that the initiative is implemented and outcomes monitored. Given the expanded remit of the Department, a more integrated approach to fraud control can be realised. With regard to progress and outcomes, the level of control review activity amounted to some 980,000 reviews and targets established for 2011 were exceeded with total savings of €645 million realised. Thus far in 2012, review targets are being fully met.
The Department has recently finalised three fraud and error surveys which have been made available to the members of the committee. These surveys will help the Department to refine the implementation of control strategies for each of the areas covered. The Department is applying both new and expanded approaches to enhance fraud investigation and control activity such as predictive risk analytics; greater inter-agency co-operation at national and local level; legislative provisions to give additional powers to departmental staff; the examination of new ways to recover social welfare fraud overpayments; increasing penalties for fraudulent activity; and systematic and regular data matching exercises on internal systems and with external agencies.
The roll-out of the public service card has commenced. This is a multi-annual project but for several reasons it has been slower to move to full production than had originally been envisaged. We have now put in place the infrastructure, staffing and training to ensure that we will significantly escalate the roll-out of the card to our customers throughout our local office network during the rest of this year.
The committee will note in the briefing already provided that the Department and its accounting software provider have continued to make progress in addressing deficiencies in our accounting reconciliation system as set out by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his 2010 report.
I wish to acknowledge the great dedication and continued flexibility of the staff of the Department, including those who have recently joined us. Our reorganisation, which has included the transfer of large numbers of staff from the public sector to the Civil Service, is an important part of the public sector reform agenda. I trust the committee will be assured that in delivering on our mandate we are conscious of our duties to our customers, to the taxpayer and to the Oireachtas.
