JOINT COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AND FAMILY AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 5 Mar 2008

Role and Functions: Discussion with Citizens Information Board.

Chairman

I welcome Ms Leonie Lunny, chief executive officer, and Mr. Tony McQuinn, senior manager of development and support, and Ms Eileen Fitzgerald, senior management of regional services, of the Citizens Information Board. I ask Ms Lunny to brief the committee on the role and functions of the Citizens Information Board.

I draw attention to the fact that members of the committee have absolute privilege but this same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before it. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the house or an official, by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Ms Leonie Lunny

My presentation is comprised of a number of slides. I will go through these briefly because many of them are merely for information purposes. I hope to provide a sense of the nature of the organisation's work.

Our statutory obligations are set out in the Comhairle Act 2000 and the Citizens Information Act 2007. The latter Act was responsible for, first, changing our name from Comhairle and, second, giving us responsibility for advocacy services for people with disabilities. Our grant allocation for 2008 is €30.954 million. I have provided for members, on the relevant slide, a breakdown of the areas in which this money is spent.

We have four strategic priorities under our strategic plan. The first of these relates to integrated information. The core business of the organisation is the production of high-quality, customer-focused information on all aspects of social and civil services, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of people.

Our website, www.citizensinformation.ie, is simple and clear, providing information under 14 categories relating to life events and corresponding issues. Our content management system involves open source technology. The content is authored in-house but we obtain assistance from specialists and experts. The website is easy to navigate. In e-government terms, the website was cited in 2007’s Cap Gemini report as “best practice within the EU and has been ranked at the highest level of the assessment model”.

Co-ordination and the avoidance of duplication are extremely important to the Citizens Information Board, CIB, in the context of the information it provides. In the production of such information, we work with Departments, agencies and voluntary bodies. The aim is to produce the information once but to have it used many times in different ways.

Our second strategic priority is service delivery. The core of our service delivery involves a three-channel approach using our website, our telephone service and our citizens information services. In 2007, there were 1.85 million unique users of our website, almost 109,000 callers to the telephone service and approximately 613,000 people contacted our 42 citizens information services.

People use our website because it is easy to navigate and it is simple to obtain the information being sought. We try to include on the website information relating to every area in respect of which it might be required. The website is used by members of the public, information providers and service providers in the statutory and voluntary sectors.

On e-exclusion, we are very conscious of those who are not included. Under a recent initiative, we put in place kiosks in 20 of our citizens information services. The idea behind this is that not only will people have access to the website but they also will be able to avail of assistance from staff at the centres to allow them to come to grips with what is involved.

One of advantages of our telephone services is that it is available, Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. As with the citizens information services, the citizens information telephone service is a voluntary organisation — a company limited by guarantee, with a board representative of the voluntary, public and private sectors. One of the slides provided gives a breakdown, in percentage terms and by region, of the calls received. The telephone service sets out to meet people's needs in different ways. The Citizens Information Board was established in the context of mainstreaming services for people with disabilities. We are always conscious, therefore, of the need for accessibility. Some of the alternative channels are very much directed towards those who are deaf. I refer, for example, to the video link with interpretive service, the live on-line adviser and the text messaging service.

On the face-to-face service, there are 42 citizens information services throughout the country. Again, these are all companies that are limited by guarantee and their boards are representative of voluntary and statutory agencies. In addition to paid staff, more than 1,000 volunteers and community employment workers help to provide the service. Services are provided at more than 260 locations throughout the country. There are 54 full-time, 52 part-time and 162 outreach services. The busiest single location is the centre in O'Connell Street, Dublin. The profile of users can vary substantially from location to location. For example, a high percentage of foreign nationals use the O'Connell Street centre.

While the categories of queries have changed, the highest number of queries have always been received in respect of matters relating to social welfare. At one point, such queries accounted for 40% plus of the overall number. Now, however, the figure stands at approximately 33%. Approximately 20% of queries relate to employment rights and employment issues. This figure has risen in recent years. With regard to co-ordination, we try to work with a number of agencies — a list of which is provided — to enable them to provide the specialist services people may require when they arrive at the premises of a citizens information service.

I have provided information on our initiatives and the publications we issue. Members may be aware of some of the latter. For example, RELATE, one of our information publications, has been around for some time and is produced on a monthly basis.

Our third strategic priority relates to advocacy and social policy development. We take a three-strand approach in this regard. Under this, we consider the development of projects in the community and voluntary sector, the personal advocacy service and the community visitors programme. The first strand of this was initiated in 2004. There are 47 projects currently in train, 17 of which were initiated in 2007. The first meeting with those responsible for these projects, in the context of the formalisation of procedures, is taking place today. I have provided information for members regarding some of these advocacy projects.

The personal advocacy service is dealt with in detail under the Citizens Information Act. To date, the post of director has been advertised. The service will be provided directly by the Citizens Information Board and will be aimed at those who are most vulnerable. It is closely linked to the Disability Act and to the process relating to the assessment of needs. The first piece of the puzzle will be the filling of the director post. We are awaiting approval in respect of a small core staff to enable us to establish the service.

Strategic priority 4 is about enhancing accessibility to information advice and advocacy services and we have taken a number of initiatives. Our guidelines are outlined at the bottom of that page. We have taken a range of initiatives over the years regarding people with disabilities because we are very conscious of disability, given that we subsumed the National Social Services Board and the National Rehabilitation Board. A number of the initiatives were implemented in conjunction with disability organisations.

With regard to the information age and older people, we took a substantial initiative in 2007, which included issuing an information booklet to all social welfare pensioners in the State. We also have the Border Wise project. The most recent is January 2007 to June 2008 but we have worked on a cross-Border basis with Citizens Advice Northern Ireland since early 2000. A range of initiatives has been taken.

Foreign nationals have become a substantial part of our business. We commissioned research and we are drawing up an action plan, which is a focus for the year. Assist Ireland is a database of more than 6,000 products to assist people with disabilities in their daily living. Page 17 contains a slide on the sign language interpretation service, for which the board has responsibility under the Department of Social and Family Affairs sectoral plan. It became operational in April 2007 but it is still in its early days and has a number of challenges to meet.

The next slide deals with accredited training. The quality of service depends very much on the people who deliver it and training is important. The final slide concerns customer feedback. We take a range of initiatives to listen to our customers to enable us to constantly adjust our services to meet their needs.

Deputy Olwyn Enright

I admire the brevity of the presentation. I very much support the board's work, which sometimes takes pressure off our citizen's information service. Sometimes we wonder whether that is the main part of our job. Ms Lunny referred to the board's role in policy development. Given the large number of queries received by the board, it is better placed to highlight the anomalies in the system. Does it have a direct method to address them through the Department of Social and Family Affairs? The Pensions Ombudsman appeared before the committee two weeks ago. He said the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, which is going through the House this week, would deal with pensions anomalies that were brought to his attention.

Are all 42 services separate companies limited by guarantee? Can the board transfer community employment scheme workers into full-time employment when vacancies arise? It is costly to train somebody in the different skill sets and it would be a shame to lose them after they acquire such skills.

Ms Lunny outlined various categories of queries. The largest proportion relate to the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Has the board direct access to the Department through specific officials? I am sometimes contacted by the citizens information service about queries it receives because I know solicitors who deal with it and so on. They are very good at accessing people locally who will voluntarily help them and who can respond to their queries, which is positive. When I ring the Department, I could be on the telephone for ages. If the board has a queue of people outside the door or has to deal with a queue of e-mail, are there issues we can raise to facilitate improved access to the Department?

How does the board source disability advocacy projects? How does a group become a project under the scheme?

I thank Ms Fitzgerald who visited my home town recently to open a new centre. The reason it came about was disability access but everybody is very happy with it.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I welcome the delegation. I compliment the board on its work, especially in my own county. Whenever officials are asked to attend community meetings or day care centres, they do so willingly and they are a mine of information, for which I thank them.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I welcome our visitors and I commend them on their work at community level, which is very impressive. I receive a copy of Relate every month and I have stored copies in my office since I started out in politics. I consult the magazine on a regular basis.

The board provides an excellent service but there is a gap in providing information to people on their entitlements abroad. This is an increasing phenomenon. The State pension is paid to 35,000 Irish people living abroad. Increasingly, people are moving to Spain, England and other countries when they retire and there is a gap in the information provided by the State on their entitlements while living abroad and on their entitlements in the state to which they move. Could the board improve the information available in this area?

The amendment to the contributory State pension rules has implications for people in their 50s and 60s. There is a significant lack of awareness about the change in the rules on contributions. Is that issue cropping up? Does the board foresee this as a problem? Can it provide advice to people on this?

I refer to the advocacy service. Ms Lunny referred to the recruitment of a director. Are advocates in place? If so, how many? How many are necessary to deal with current demand? Is there a difficulty in recruiting advocates?

Will Ms Lunny refer to the board's decentralisation plans? Have offices been sourced?

Based on the figures she supplied, the ratio of volunteers to employees is approximately 5:1. Is the number of volunteers increasing or decreasing? How will it go in future? Has there been a slowdown in the numbers volunteering? If so, has it caused problems for the board?

Deputy Charlie O’Connor

I would like to be associated with the warm welcome extended to the delegation. It is important to link the presentations we have had today. There is a need for us to keep up pressure regarding the provision of information. Deputy Enright stated many people who contact a CIC also contact public representatives as a matter of course. There is always a debate about what Oireachtas Members should be doing. Should we be closeted somewhere dealing only with legislation or should we be in our communities dealing with queries and answering questions? A balance must be struck and more experienced colleagues have coped better than myself. I represent Dublin South-West and live in Tallaght, the third largest population centre in the country, which has a very successful citizen's information centre. I am not in a position to say whether the people who come to my constituency clinic are the same people who seek information from the centre, but I know it provides an excellent service. I have been associated with it for a long time and am a member of the board of Tallaght welfare society, where the service was initially set up. The welfare society was founded in 1969. Over the years as Tallaght became a major population centre, there was a growing need for an information service. The citizens' information centre on Tallaght's main street provides that service. I am aware the information centre deals with the issues mentioned by the Citizens Information Board — employment, social welfare and housing issues, etc.

I compliment the CIB on the development of the special services catering for international members of the community. On Tuesday nights the Tallaght centre deals with issues important for this group. Currently, there is much focus on the Polish community. While there are many Polish people in Tallaght, there is a more international element to many of our communities. In Springfield where I live, half of the school population is made up of people from 55 different countries. This is amazing. There is a need for a service for these people and I am glad the CIB has responded positively to that need, not just in Tallaght, but throughout the country. It is right and important to highlight this issue. If we are to integrate these people into communities and deal with the problems that arise — we all have experience of being in foreign countries and wondering where we can get information — it is important they can access information.

Without throwing too many bouquets, I also find the regular editions I receive of the CIB's monthly information update, Relate, very important for the work we do. I may be stating the obvious, but it has explained issues clearly over the years and made sense of information that might, otherwise, be difficult to understand. It is an important publication which I use it quite a lot. It not only goes to public representatives, but to information centres and Tallaght welfare society. It is a highly regarded resource and long may it continue. I urge the CIB to continue with it and to continue responding to the issues and providing explanations.

It is important, not just for the CIB but for the system generally, that we continue to highlight the importance of such services. Services will always be under pressure staff and resource wise. My local office is no different. What strategic plan does the CIB have with regard to future funding and for how long does it see a need for its services? There will always be a need for this kind of information.

I apologise for being parochial and for mentioning Tallaght a few times, but in Tallaght we not only have a main service in Main Street in Tallaght village, but the service has reached out to the Square. I do not want to create a commercial for the Square, but millions pass through it every year and it is a good place to show off a service and stress its availability. I hope the various CIC offices will continue to get the resources they need to allow for that development. There is no question but that local citizen information centres are providing an excellent and much needed service. I will not criticise the Department of Social and Family Affairs or anybody else, but there is always a need for simple and effective public access to Department services and this message must be passed on to Ministers. CICs provide an excellent service and it is important that we support them.

Deputy Joe Carey

I join my colleagues in complimenting the CIB on its work. What qualifications do staff in CICs have and must they undergo training on interaction with the public and the provision of information? The organisation has high profile offices throughout the country, which provide ease of access. Does it own many of these properties or does it rent them? Does it intend to purchase any properties? I compliment the organisation on the ever-expanding service it provides to the public. In my county of Clare, it started in Ennis and has expanded to various outreach centres throughout the county.

Ms Leonie Lunny

I hope that between the three of us we will manage to answer all of the questions. I will deal with the question on social policy. This was probably given less emphasis than it should have been in our presentation. We see the area of social policy as being part of the continuum where we provide information to people, listen to what they have to say in terms of issues and try to capture the issues and provide feedback in terms of the Department of Social and Family Affairs or other Departments. We take a regular range of subject areas and prepare either formal or shorter reports and feed these back to the relevant agencies.

There are 42 CICs and each is an independent company. I will deal with the phone service and the sign language interpreting service, SLIS. We have a model to work with. The CIB is a statutory body and depends very much on working with the voluntary sector. All of the organisations are companies limited by guarantee and have a board of directors, all of whom come from the local area of a CIC. However, with the interpreting or phone service, we try to get national representation because there are national bodies and we like to include the various strands.

The question was asked about the community employment scheme and whether people get the opportunity to go forward. I cannot say for sure, but I believe a number of people would be successful. Perhaps Ms Fitzgerald can comment on that.

Ms Eileen Fitzgerald

We have a policy within the citizens information service of open recruitment. All sanctioned posts are advertised and a number of people who have worked on CIC schemes would be successful because they have spent time, possibly been trained and would have worked in the services for some years. However, there is no automatic transfer into permanent posts within the services.

Ms Leonie Lunny

Many of the people who are appointed have come through the service. A question was asked about qualifications. Generally there is an open competition for posts in citizens information services. People do not necessarily need a third level qualification, but often applicants have one. We focus on providing training and have got involved with the area of accredited training, with FETAC accreditation, in recent years. This has been resource-intensive for us and we are discussing how we might contract that out with other organisations. Until now, we have provided the training and gone through the process of getting accreditation.

I should also mention our advocacy service. We have worked with the institute of technology in Sligo and the Equality Authority and have developed an accredited course in advocacy. We have had 27 graduates. It is currently a two-year diploma course but will become a graduate course. It is an issue for us. As information provision is a specialty that is not necessarily taken up by other institutions, we found ourselves having to provide the required training.

A question was asked about the staffing of disability projects. I will ask Mr. McQuinn to speak about the 47 advocacy projects.

Mr. Tony McQuinn

As Ms Lunny said, the projects were part of a three-strand approach to developing services. We were anxious to ensure advocacy services would be available as quickly as possible. Apart from its central services, the Citizens Information Board has a regional structure. We have engaged with voluntary organisations in the disability sector and organisations such as the citizens information centres to provide these projects. As Ms Fitzgerald said, there are such 47 projects. There is good geographical coverage. A number of the projects are targeted at particular disability groups and organisations. More recently, we have been attempting to deal with some of the more vulnerable groups, particularly those in residential settings.

Ms Leonie Lunny

The strategy sets out a three-strand approach. We began with the voluntary and community sector in which there is this patchwork of projects with paid representative advocates who take up issues for people with a disability. Like many other aspects in the voluntary and community sector, it is a challenge because it is difficult to have an even spread. We have had issues in trying to ensure a geographical spread. There is the issue of specialisms. We have been trying to merge them to get people to take a wider group. The disability sector is segmented in how it provides services. That is one strand.

The second strand is the personal advocacy service which has been slower than one might have hoped for. The legislation was enacted last February but we were preparing for it for some time before that date. We are about to conduct interviews to fill the post of director of the personal advocacy service. We envisage that many of the situations in which people with a disability are involved will be dealt with through one of the projects. In turn, more complex issues will come to the attention of the personal advocacy service and an advocate will be assigned. This is set out in detail in the Citizens Information Act 2007 which also sets out the role of the advocate. It is our intention to try to provide the service in as effective a way as possible in order that it will be structured around the issue that arises. The case will then be brought to a conclusion and perhaps reopened at a later stage. The process is at the development stage. We neither have the director of the personal advocacy service nor a single personal advocate employed in the organisation but we hope to be in a position to get the service under way in the next couple of months.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

How many advocates are proposed for the service?

Ms Leonie Lunny

We are looking for a very small core of individuals to develop and start thinking about the service and to develop intake procedures and for the things that need to happen. We set out in the original report that the initial core group might number about 20 advocates. The thinking is that many of the issues will fall to be dealt with by the voluntary and community sector. Until the service gets under way, it will be difficult to estimate how complex cases will be and the timescales involved. As time passes, 20 advocates may not be an adequate number to cover the country.

With regard to the entitlements of people abroad, I refer to the use of the worldwide web.

Mr. Tony McQuinn

Our website, www.citizensinformation.ie, contains a lot of information on entitlements for people coming to and leaving Ireland. That it is available throughout the world means that people abroad who require such information have access to information that is clear and straightforward. As the Deputy said, however, there are complexities regarding PRSI and stamps and the multiple ways in which one can qualify. Often it is necessary to receive further support than might be available. In that regard, it is worth pointing out that one aspect of the citizens information website is that people can e-mail queries which are dealt with by the citizens information telephone service. Last year we received more than 20,000 queries, many from within Ireland. The website is a mechanism for use by people outside the country. We have also worked with the Department from time to time to meet the particular needs of people living in Britain. We are conscious of the needs of the Irish community abroad. Use of the website is effective in addressing such issues.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I have a specific question on the proposed changes in respect of entitlement to a State pension. This is not necessarily a subject about which the board will be asked questions because the problem is lack of awareness of the changes to be made. Is the board taking any steps to notify people about them?

Mr. Tony McQuinn

We would not be in a position to notify individuals because we do not have such access but we try to be proactive in the provision of information. We have no sense of the relevant numbers accessing the website but certainly highlight changes as they occur. This is the case with regard to the network of citizens information centres where people are constantly updated about changes and, where required, special provision is made in terms of the provision of training and support.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I may have missed that point. I was not aware of any such information.

Mr. Tony McQuinn

I will check the details. As they become relevant, it is our practice to make the information available.

Ms Leonie Lunny

I refer to Tallaght which is close to my heart as I worked there as a member of the board of the Tallaght Welfare Society. The pressure on the service and the resources required are issues we are hoping to address in trying to link people with the most appropriate channel in meeting their needs. We are making a real effort to encourage people who can use the web to use it and those for whom use of the telephone is appropriate, to use it. In time we hope to reach a position where the face to face service will be reserved for those who have more complex queries or are more vulnerable. I ask Ms Fitzgerald to comment on this shift in the face to face service.

Ms Eileen Fitzgerald

The emphasis is on trying to ensure the face to face service will be utilised by those who most need it. We are looking at a service delivery action plan to look at the business processes that may need to be introduced within citizens' information services in the context where there will always be a certain limitation on resources. We will examine whether there are systems that should be in place to introduce an appointments system and provide for other ways of doing business. We are in discussions with Eircom on a call routing system in order that if citizens information service staff are very busy, calls can be diverted to be dealt with by the telephone service in order that they can concentrate on face to face services. All of these things are at a very initial stage of discussion. However, we feel we need to do that because the feedback from the centres is that they are becoming increasingly busy. As the client base changes, as the queries become more complex and as the advocacy work becomes more proactive, it is more time-consuming for them. Utilising the face-to-face services for simple information is probably not the best use of resources. Having said that we cannot close the doors to people and customers must have the option to make choices themselves. It will be a process that will take a little time to work through and introduce. We are currently trying to look at these various different processes.

Ms Leonie Lunny

There is a core of people who go everywhere.

Deputy Charlie O’Connor

That is an absolute.

Ms Leonie Lunny

That is an absolute fact.

Senator Rónán Mullen

I welcome the witnesses and I apologise for not having been here for the earlier part of their presentation because of having to speak in the Seanad. I was interested in what they said about connecting up in the context of advocacy, education at third level and the Citizens Information Board's linkage with the institutes of technology. I lecture in Blanchardstown. I ask the witnesses to expand on the origin of that link up and the pathway by which students might arrive on these courses, whether they are full time or part time, how such students are recruited on to this course, the fee structure and perhaps the career path. Where does it lead? Does it lead into work for the Citizens Information Board or do other opportunities exist?

Ms Leonie Lunny

Like many of these initiatives, some of this happened because a number of people got together quite informally and began to realise there was quite a gap. There were discussions between an individual in our organisation and an individual in the Equality Authority. I am not sure how Sligo came into it.

Mr. Tony McQuinn

Again there was a connection between some of the people in Sligo Institute of Technology and the local citizens' information service.

Ms Leonie Lunny

Arising from that they began to ask what we could do. There is very little in terms of formal training for advocacy. We could not find anything here. We had considerable difficulty finding it in other jurisdictions also. From there some planning started to happen. It was coincidental that it was Sligo. We would envisage this course being replicated in other organisations. We have had inquiries from some other organisations.

Senator Rónán Mullen

The institutes of technology are sufficiently spread out. Perhaps synergies might be possible.

Ms Leonie Lunny

Representatives from Waterford Institute of Technology have been talking to us. I am not sure who else has been talking to us. There is an interest in it. Some 27 graduates have come out of it. Many of the participants have been from advocacy projects and a number have been from citizens' information services. Other people have come from academia, Departments, etc. We have generally financially supported a number of people who are on it. We have given some support to them.

Senator Rónán Mullen

Is it attracting people who are already within the advocacy sector as distinct from people from the leaving certificate cohort?

Ms Leonie Lunny

Absolutely, it is definitely attracting more people with some years' experience.

Senator Rónán Mullen

What is the course structure in terms of time commitment? I presume it is part time.

Ms Leonie Lunny

It is part time.

Mr. Tony McQuinn

There is a focus on distance learning. The course is designed to fit in with the requirements of people who are probably at work.

Senator Rónán Mullen

To what level of award does it lead? Is it certificate level?

Mr. Tony McQuinn

It leads to a higher certificate. As Ms Lunny said earlier, work is at an advanced stage with regard to the development of a degree course, which will certainly enhance it. There has been considerable demand for the course that is available. We are considering how the course might be made available in other centres. It is being actively pursued.

Senator Rónán Mullen

With degrees in advocacy we would hope it would not be confused with barristers.

Ms Leonie Lunny

Our legislation excludes legal matters. We are very clear about that area.

Senator Rónán Mullen

It is important in maintaining the prestige of people on the course. One would not want them being associated with the legal profession.

Chairman

I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee and giving such a comprehensive briefing.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.15 until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 2 April 2008.