Vol. 404 No. 5
4 Mr. Connaughton asked the Minister for Social Welfare when community welfare officers currently employed by the health boards will become directly responsible to his Department; the reasons for the proposed change; and if he has satisfied himself that such a change will enhance the provision of services already being provided by community welfare officers.
My objective is to ensure that all income maintenance services will be delivered in a co-ordinated and cost effective manner. In so far as possible, clients should have only one point of contact when claiming their entitlements. It was for this reason that I introduced the one-stop-shop approach.
This is reflected in the commitment contained in the Programme for Economic and Social Progress to further streamline social assistance provisions and to provide for the greater integration into the social welfare system of the supplementary welfare allowance provision and related schemes currently administered by the health boards.
Many of the services provided under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme are provided to clients who are already in receipt of some other service from my Department. I am currently having the range of services provided under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme examined to identify those aspects which could most readily be integrated with the services provided directly by my Department.
All aspects of these matters and there implications for other services currently provided by community welfare officers will be fully discussed with the Department of Health and the health boards before detailed arrangements are finalised. I recognise that changes along these lines will have certain implications for community welfare officers and these are among the issues which will be addressed in the context of changes to the existing arrangements.
First, I will take the Minister up on the last sentence in his reply. Whatever problems the community welfare officers may have about the subsequent changes they are nothing compared with the problems the changes might create for people who depend on the community welfare officers for an instant decision or reaction to their problem. May I ask the Minister to say what will happen when the work of community welfare officers is subsumed into the Department of Social Welfare? Will the bureaucratic system get tied up again? The community welfare officers are very important to the underprivileged and the low paid, as the Minister well knows. They may not be able to act in that capacity in future so I would ask the Minister to give great thought to this before any changes are made?
That is obviously true, a great deal of thought has to be given to this question and is currently being given to it, otherwise it would have been a fairly simple matter. It was recommended in the commission's report and in various other reports.
The one-stop-shop approach integrates the various provisions and makes information available instantly. At this stage we are providing links to the health boards to ensure that information is available because it is usually the information that causes the delays. Ultimately the community welfare officers have a function which is essential as the person of last resort when all the routine schemes are not meeting a particular set of circumstances. We have streamlined and standardised a number of the schemes. For example, the fuel scheme has been standardised and a footwear and clothing scheme has been introduced. This has made payments more automatic. Notwithstanding that there will still be an element of decision in relation to exceptional payments. In any arrangements that will be made it is vital that speed in decision making will continue and the discretional element will still have to be involved.
I would ask the Minister to give serious consideration to the fact that community welfare officers are based locally, are known in the locality and are accessible within minutes to the people who depend on them. I cannot see the Minister bringing in a scheme that will dovetail into the local scene; that will provide the kind of benefits that people need for one reason or another because the ordinary services do not meet their needs. The community welfare officer makes help available within hours, not days or weeks. Our experience is that the social welfare officers and Department of Social Welfare, for very good reason, have a longer process and obviously it takes weeks if not months sometimes to reach a decision, and they are in no position to provide the type of instant reaction which I speak about.
The social welfare officers are providing for pensions and longer-term payments generally and that is a different matter. The community welfare officers are providing interim payments, special needs payments——
They are living locally.
——and discretionary payments. They are local. We are developing a local social welfare service. Obviously if you can provide these services in a one-stop-shop in a local area, you have the best of both worlds. However that is being discussed. What we have done, for instance, is to put the bulk of the fuel payments into a standardised system and that leaves the community welfare officers to deal with the 8,000 or 9,000 cases where discretion is needed and where a scheme would not pick up certain types of people.
Mr. Connaughton rose.
Deputies Stagg and Byrne have been offering and I want to facilitate the Deputies. Perhaps they would be brief.
In welcoming the idea of a one-stop-shop for social welfare and supplementary welfare allowance payments, could the Minister assure us that there will be more uniform testing and more uniform payments arising out of the one-stop-shop than we have under the present system for supplementary welfare where there is a wide difference in payments in various places within the one health board area and even within counties?
I know there can be variations within health boards. With the provision of modern equipment it is possible to make the whole system much more uniform in the treatment of people. However once you have a discretionary element — and the community welfare officers have to operate that discretionary element — there will be individual decisions that will be different. These should be looked at from time to time to ensure that a similar standard is being applied throughout. That is the kind of thing we have had to do. We have tried to standardise schemes and at the end of the year we look at how it worked out and we find variations. You then have to decide what was right and what is possible. However I agree with the Deputy that there should be a high degree of uniformity.
In the light of the fact that there is no uniformity and the need for such uniformity, would the Minister not agree that part of the reason for the tremendous confusion particularly in the administration of the supplementary welfare scheme is that there are unpublished regulations and directives to community welfare officers which are at variance with the legislation? While we would all collectively agree that we need a one-stop-shop approach to these payments, the first step would be to allow the present social welfare appeals officers in D'Olier House to act as listening agents for appeals by people who have been turned down for supplementary welfare benefit. There is absolute confusion. It is a fog. The Minister is probably aware that FLAC published a document the other day to educate people in the caring communities as to how this scheme operates. Because of the variations in approaches from health board to health board and district to district——
I had hoped for brevity.
——would the Minister agree that there is massive confusion and some of the confusion is added by the Department giving unpublished directives?
That is the exact problem Deputy Stagg says on the one hand he wants uniformity and on the other hand he wants discretion. The system, as Deputy Connaughton said, requires discretion. All you can do in terms of uniformity is provide some guidelines but the discretion still rests with the local people within broad guidelines. That element will continue because of the nature of the work done by the community welfare officers. They are the last people facing the difficulties when other systems are not providing support.
Deputy John Browne is offering. Perhaps the Deputy will be brief. I want to make progress on other questions. We have not disposed of even four questions in literally half an hour and from any standpoint that is not progress.
At present social welfare officers spend an inordinate amount of time — six weeks at least — investigating pensions. At community level there is on-the-spot reaction. Is there a danger that instead of bringing the six weeks investigation back to on-the-spot decisions, we will have it the other way round and people who are really in need will be delayed because, of further regulations, if this goes through?
The whole point is that they are two separate tasks. Incidentally, Deputy Byrne raised a question about appeals. That is an element which will be considered when the appeals office is functioning smoothly and running well. We must give it some time to get underway with the vast amount of work it has taken on. Things are going well there and that whole question can be considered once it is running smoothly.
Question No. 5, please.
