Written Answers - Social Welfare Schemes.
Paul McGrath
Question:
457
Mr. McGrath
asked the
Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs
if there is an eight to ten week delay in processing applications for the free schemes; the staffing measures he intends to put in place to alleviate this delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[12123/01]
Paul McGrath
Question:
458
Mr. McGrath
asked the
Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs
if there is a 12 week delay in processing one parent family payment applications in his Department; the staffing measures he intends to put in place to alleviate this delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[12124/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 457 and 458 together.
Claims under the one-parent family payment scheme and the free schemes are processed from my Departments office in Sligo which also administers all of the main pensions schemes for which the Department is responsible.
In the case of the one-parent family payments around 18,000 claims a year – equivalent to about 350 per week – are being received at present. Over the past 12 months, the average number of weeks to decide a claim was ten weeks in the case of unmarried claimants and 14 weeks in the case of separated claimants. This represents a slight deterioration on the position in the preceding year.
The time taken to process individual claims varies significantly having regard to the difficulty or otherwise in establishing the circumstances in each case. It should be noted however, that a large majority of applicants are in receipt of another social welfare payment while their claim is being processed. Such payment will normally continue until entitlement to one-parent family payment is determined. Every effort is being made to process applications as quickly as possible and to minimise the time during which applicants receive these alternative forms of support.
It is intended to devolve the administration of the one-parent family payment to the Department's network of local offices around the country. This will assist in reducing claim processing times, through closer linkage with the local investigative officer network. Plans for localisation of the scheme are being drawn up at present and a localisation pilot project is currently getting under way.
The scope of the free schemes has been greatly extended din the last tow budgets. It is expected that an additional 80,000 claims will be processed this year, al most doubling the normal annual new claim intake.
An increase of this order in the level of new claims inevitably impacts to some degree on the normal claims turnaround. Additional staff and overtime resources have been applied by the Department to deal with the extra work volumes in 2000 and further resources are being assigned to deal with the extra claim intake in 2001.
In the normal course, my Department would expect to process 70% of claims to the schemes in question in seven weeks. With the assignment of additional staff, normal response rates will be restored over the next few months. I would like to assure the Deputy, however, that every effort is made to process all claims as quickly as possible and that any delay will not result in any loss of entitlements to the people concerned.
Overall staffing requirements in the Sligo office are being reviewed at present in the context of an overall review of requirements in the Department generally.
