Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands debate -
Wednesday, 14 Dec 2022

Community Welfare Service: Department of Social Protection

Chairman

The second session has been convened to discuss the community welfare service. I welcome Mr. Rónán Hession, assistant secretary with responsibility for working age and family policy, Mr. Des Henry, principal officer with responsibility for supplementary welfare allowance policy, and Mr. Noel Hand, principal officer with responsibility for the community welfare service. The witnesses are all very welcome.

Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses with regard to references the witnesses may make to other persons when giving evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or who give evidence within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in any way that makes him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I thank the members of the committee for the invitation to attend to discuss additional needs payments and the community welfare service. I am the assistant secretary general of the Department of Social Protection with responsibility for working age income supports, including supplementary welfare allowance and additional needs payments. I am joined by my colleagues Mr. Des Henry, who is the principal officer with policy responsibility in this area, and Mr. Noel Hand, the principal officer who leads our community welfare service.

The purpose of an additional needs payment is to assist with essential, once-off, exceptional expenditure that people could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income. Additional needs payment is an overarching term used to refer to what committee members may also know as exceptional and urgent needs payments. The payment is not restricted to those already on a social welfare payment and may also be made available to those working on a low income. The budget for additional needs payments is demand-led and is not subject to an overall cap. The Government has provided €46 million for additional needs payments in 2022, which increased to €63.69 million under the Revised Estimates Volume.

By far the largest cost component relates to housing, particularly kit-outs for those in local authority accommodation. Housing accounts for 61% of our spend on additional needs payments this year. The next largest categories in terms of cost are funeral and burial expenses at 12% and clothing, which is largely Ukraine-related, at 10%. Heating costs account for around 3%.

Additional needs payments are administered by the Department’s community welfare service. Payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme, taking into consideration the requirements of the legislation and all the relevant circumstances of the case. This ensures the payments target those most in need of assistance. Local face-to-face engagement with customers continues to be a cornerstone of the community welfare service. This aspect of the service remains in place and will not change.

There is a community welfare officer presence in 50 Intreo centres nationwide, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. In addition, a part time service is provided at scheduled hours at a range of other locations. In locations where a community welfare officer is not on site, one can be available to attend within one hour of an emergency presenting. Throughout the country, community welfare officers remain available by appointment or can travel to meet customers as needed. This includes out-of-hours and weekends in emergency cases. However, a customer does not have to attend in person or travel to an office to submit an additional needs payment claim or to make an inquiry. If it is more convenient for them, customers can call our freefone line. Up to three quarters of the queries to our phone line resolve the customer’s issue without the need for an in-person meeting with a community welfare officer. The relevant forms are also available to download or can be posted to customers if that is easier for them. In addition, we are currently developing our IT system to facilitate online applications and expect this to become available in the new year.

There are 412 staff across all grades in the community welfare service. In light of the increased level of applications in 2022, we have secured agreement for 74 additional staff to be assigned to the community welfare service. This recruitment is under way and we expect the new staff to be in place in the first quarter of 2023. In the meantime, 30 social welfare inspectors have been temporarily reassigned to the community welfare service since the start of November to assist with claims processing.

In early September, rent supplement claim processing nationwide was consolidated into a central rents unit, releasing community welfare officers for reassignment to other duties, including the provision of a rapid response to increases in additional needs payment claim loads. In addition, we are in the process of establishing support hubs comprising clerical staff to undertake routine administrative tasks. This frees up community welfare officers to meet customers, process claims and respond to surges in the demand for the service. The hub structure also means community welfare officers are not dependent on a small number of clerical staff in their own local areas.

Additional needs payments have been an important part of our Department’s response to the challenges that arose in 2022. We have been centrally involved in providing support to those fleeing the war in Ukraine, providing 26,000 additional needs payments to this cohort in addition to the provision of ongoing social welfare payments. In response to cost-of-living pressures, we ran two advertising campaigns, in spring and autumn this year, to promote awareness of additional needs payments. These campaigns created significant spikes in claims at those times as public awareness of the scheme increased. While this concentration of demand within a short period of time draws on our resources, we think it is important we reach out to those who need our help.

Notwithstanding these pressure points, the majority of applications are finalised within a short time of being received by the Department. The number of claims on hand has fallen below 10,000. To put this in perspective, we are currently clearing just under 6,000 claims per week, with 3,500 new claims arriving per week. Where an application is taking longer to process, this is generally due to additional information or documentation being requested from the person to support the application. Where the person responds with the required information and documents, the application is finalised as promptly as possible.

While the composition of our claim load fluctuates, in general, 70% of claims take under four weeks. A further 25% are finalised between four and 12 weeks, with less than 5% taking longer than 12 weeks. It is important to note that not all additional needs payment claims involve an urgent need. Most claims relate to help with an upcoming expense. In cases where people have an immediate need, every effort is made to ensure they receive a payment on the same day. The committee might note that the number of emergency cases requiring immediate payment remains low.

We get regular queries about the statistics relating to our schemes and services, including additional needs payments. These queries typically request breakdowns regarding category, location, frequency distributions and volumes. Committee members should be aware that, in addition to our annual statistics report, we currently publish quarterly data on our main schemes and services on our website. More detailed information on community welfare services will, subject to system capacity and a robust verification process, be included in these quarterly publications in 2023. We also endeavour to respond to bespoke queries promptly, accurately and transparently. However, the generation of bespoke statistics involves some effort and draws staff away from the task of managing the service itself. We will nevertheless continue to respond to such requests where feasible.

I emphasise to the committee, to our customers and to our future customers that we are here to help. We aim to provide a discreet, sympathetic, consistent and responsive service. Our community welfare officers work hard to make sure people get the support they need, and I thank them for the important work they do and for their dedication. While there is pressure on the system, we are taking concrete steps to resource and improve the effectiveness of the service to our customers. We look forward to hearing the views of committee members and we are happy to help with any questions.

Deputy Claire Kerrane

I thank Mr. Hession for coming before the committee. A number of us have been raising issues around the additional needs payments and community welfare officers, CWOs, in particular access to CWOs, for some time now. We do not raise these issues for the fun of it but because constituents are coming to us. They are facing difficulties with the wait time for additional needs payments and due to the way they used to access the community welfare officer no longer being an option. These are real issues which are affecting people in very difficult situations, especially now as we go through this cost-of-living crisis and we are in what is going to be a very difficult winter for very many people.

I want to check one point in Mr. Hession's opening statement as to what an additional need payment is and when he says it is once-off. It is important that he confirm that people can get more than one additional needs payment, particularly when it comes to energy costs. The language around once-off payments, and it was there for exceptional needs payments in its time, causes difficulty. I have met people who have told me they had already applied once and could not apply again. The messaging around that is important. Where people are struggling, they need to know they can seek additional assistance. That would be important.

People will be surprised at 3% of the expenditure being on heating costs, but given the amount of money being spent, it is probably a larger cohort than it may have been previously. Will Mr. Hession tell us how many payments have been made in 2022 for heating and will he give the number of payments and the spend on heating specifically?

It has been said many times that local facing engagement with customers continues to be a cornerstone of the community welfare service. Will Mr. Hession tell the committee who decided and when it was decided that community welfare officers would come out of the community? They would have been in the local health centre in many towns. I know in my hometown of Ballaghaderreen, the community welfare officer was in the health centre and people could go in and out to them. That knowledge was very important because the CWO knew Mary or Johnny and knew they were coming in. All of that is important and that is why community welfare services were set up in the first place. That was the whole point of the CWOs. It is easy to say we have 50 Intreo centres and that they are open 9 to 5. In that instance in Ballaghaderreen, a person would have to travel to Roscommon town, which is 40 to 45 minutes away, both ways, and there is no public transport. It is just not that simple.

We have many new communities throughout the State. They do not have English as their first language and they are seeking supports. It would have been an awful lot easier to pop into the health centre and speak to the CWO. Some of them are coming in and they do not have access to phones and do not speak English. Some people also do not feel comfortable speaking over the phone. We all see it, even with constituents today. When they are speaking to us, they do not want to do it over the phone. I have highlighted many times an issue one of the local family resource centres raised with me. If you are in a domestic violence situation, you may not have a phone. You may not have ten minutes to be on the phone explaining your situation, but if you go to the shop, you can run into the health centre quietly and speak to the CWO. You might not be in a position to invite them to your house or to meet them separately. These are the kinds of situations I am talking about and the difficulties there are for people given the CWOs have been removed from the community. That is a fact. It would be helpful if Mr. Hession could tell us who decided and when it was decided that would be the case.

On putting the application online, this is a suggestion I made to the Minister back in June. It has taken a long time for this to happen. I welcome that the Minister has said it will be up and running in the new year. That is welcome and it will help a certain cohort of people who will be able to do those applications online. If the system does not allow them to submit an application until all of that information is given, there will not be that delay and the over-and-back looking for additional information. That is very important.

Will Mr. Hession tell us a little bit more about the support hubs he is talking about establishing, as mentioned in his statement?

On the waiting times for additional needs payments, at the beginning of September I received correspondence to say 95% of applications were taking between eight to ten weeks to finalise. This is obviously far too long. Waiting four weeks for the majority of payments is still very long. If a person is in an emergency, they put in the application form that is about 16 pages - in many of our cases it goes to Tuam now - and then people are left to wait. That is a long time to wait. I appreciate not all applications are made in an emergency and that, where people can get in touch with the CWO, the application may be able to be moved along. However, the fact that applications are now being sent to Tuam and not to the local CWO or meeting them in that instance all poses difficulties.

Regarding applications that are refused, when it was just the exceptional and urgent needs payment, data were not collected or collated by the Department on it. I understand that is now taking place for the additional needs payment. It would be helpful if Mr. Hession could tell us, of the number of applications received this year, how many have refused. That is important information.

There is pressure on the system and we all know that. Concrete steps are being taken, people are being hired and, as Mr Hession has said, 30 social welfare inspectors have been redeployed. All of that is welcome but it is so late in the day to be doing this. The cost-of-living crisis has been going on all year. Demand surely should have been anticipated when the additional needs payment was first announced back in June. It is very regrettable that it is only now that staff are being hired and moved around. I understand the staff members being hired will not be in place until next year when a lot of the winter and the hardship through that will have come and gone. It is very regrettable that steps were not taken and additional resources put in quicker and sooner, especially when this was being advertised as a support to people. In some cases I am aware of people who are still waiting ten weeks. I know of a gentleman who applied at the end of September and who is still waiting. It is about 12 weeks now. It is not good enough.

The removal of the community welfare officers from the community, which is where they are supposed to be, is something that is causing and will cause huge difficulty for very many people. I do not understand why this was done and it is something the Department should revisit. That is something very many people in the Opposition have said and we cannot all be wrong. It should be something to be looked at and I encourage Mr. Hession to do that.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I thank the Deputy. A lot of issues have been raised. I will deal with some of them and may ask my colleague Mr. Noel Hand to address the issue of the reorganisation and the support hubs. I will ask my colleague Mr. Des Henry to respond to the request for data on the unsuccessful applications.

Certainly, we would not characterise it as a removal of community welfare officers from the community. As I said in my opening statement, that is very much a cornerstone of the service. We have a presence throughout the country, whether that is in offices or by appointment. Where necessary, we will also go out to meet the person, and if it does not suit their personal situation for us to do that at home, we can do it at a location that works for them.

Regarding the phone line, I take the Deputy's point about the phone not being the right option for everyone. In terms of the statistics we see, between two thirds and three quarters of the people contacting our phone line get their issue resolved without it being escalated to a community welfare officer. There is a significant volume of queries and contacts that can be dealt with without a community welfare officer being taken away from the important work of deciding and processing claims. That has been an important addition to the supports we provide.

On the Deputy's point about the resources, we are working on it, but by the end of this year, we will have approved close to 100,000 additional needs payments. We did 55,000 last year, so that is almost a doubling in the number of awarded claims. It is a significant volume of increase.

That could not happen unless people had access to CWOs who are delivering in terms of decisions. We have responded but of course we want to do more.

Decision time is a factor of the time it takes us to make a decision and the time the customer needs to gather and return the necessary information. In straightforward cases we can do that quickly but in more complicated cases it can take longer. For example, as I said, a significant portion of our spend is on housing kit-outs. Time is needed for people to get the details of the furniture, appliances, etc., or other information. We need to try to understand their need and their claim and so we are dependent on the customer coming back to us. It is not that people are necessarily waiting 12 weeks for us. That is a composite of the time it takes to work on a claim and the time it takes people to submit what they need to submit.

The Deputy made a point about once-offs. It is true that people can get more than one but if someone has a recurring need, say in the area of heating, a better answer for them might be the heating supplement. We have given some worked examples on our website and one of them includes the heating supplement. We wanted to make sure of this when we were running the information campaigns during the summer. We were thinking that if someone was at home and was wondering whether this was something they needed for their family, they would want to know if they stood a chance of getting it. We felt people might think that because they were working they would not get the additional needs payment, ANP, so we tried to clarify that for them. Second, we tried to give some worked examples so people could understand it. One of the examples we have on our site is of somebody who is on the disability allowance and has an ongoing need for heating. The heating supplement, which is also paid under supplementary welfare allowance, would possibly be a better option for them. We have a number of recurring supplements. At times we have to do a repeat piece if that is necessary. Part of what we need to look at is whether there is a scheme that is more appropriate for someone, as opposed to individual once-off payments. An ongoing recurring payment may be more appropriate for the person. The Deputy asked about claims that were not approved. I might ask Mr. Henry to talk about that and then Mr. Hand might come in on the reorganisation and the hubs, if he does not mind.

Mr. Des Henry

The percentage of claims that were disallowed to date this year is running at between 9% and 11%. That equates, for this year, to roughly 15,000 applications out of the total of over 135,000 applications received up to the end of November. Approximately 11% of applications would have been refused.

Mr. Rónán Hession

Before I hand over to Mr. Hand, I will come back in on the question about heating and the statistics. The number of heating ANPs is about 3,500, which is 4% of the total number. It is 3% of the spend, which is about €1.7 million.

Mr. Noel Hand

It is important when we get into this discussion to look at the construct of the organisation of the community welfare service, particularly in the years from 2019 onwards. In the years from 2019 up to 2022, our claim load levels dropped quite significantly. Throughout that period, the Department maintained its staffing levels in the community welfare service. It was mentioned in the opening statement that the staffing complement in the service is around 412 staff. Despite a position where claim load levels were falling, the Department maintained the staffing levels in the community welfare service throughout those years. We have continued to have staff in locations right across the country. That staffing position was not changed. When we came into 2022, even though there was an increase in activity, the staffing levels that were in place were sufficient to meet the demand that we were starting to experience. There was some criticism that we did not have sufficient staff in place to meet the demands that we were seeing but that was not actually the case. What we tried to do was react and respond to the increase in claim activity in 2022, which was quite unprecedented. There was the onset of the arrival of Ukrainian people and then the cost-of-living increases. We did have the staffing levels in place to deal with the activity we were experiencing.

With regard to access, the position changed in March 2020 due to the arrival of Covid and the public health restrictions that happened at that time. It was important for the community welfare service to be able to continue to maintain its service throughout the Covid pandemic. The service evolved over that particular period of time when we were not in a position to meet people on a face-to-face basis. The experience over that period of time was that people wanted different ways to access the service. We have been very focused on improving access to the service. Up until that point it really was a single point of access where if someone wanted to make a claim they had to engage and meet directly with a CWO. What we have done now is try to put multiple access points in place for people to access the service. Ultimately people have to complete a claims form to make a claim for the additional needs payment or for any of the other schemes. What we have done is improve the ability of people to access the service through multiple channels and not just by meeting directly with a CWO. Now people do not actually have to meet a CWO to make a claim. They can download the claim form from gov.ie. The forms are available from multiple access points, including social welfare and Intreo centres and branch offices. They are widely available out in the community so that people can get the form and submit the claim to us without actually physically engaging with anyone.

We have maintained CWOs right up and down the country in communities. They are available now in 50 Intreo centres every day of the week and also in a number of outreach locations. They are available to go out by appointment where needed. We have also introduced a national community welfare telephone line. That access point has been very successful. We are taking somewhere in the region of 1,700 telephone calls a week to that line, with 94% of calls made being answered. People have the ability to get in contact immediately with a CWO without needing to travel, or as the Deputy mentioned in her constituency, without needing to come out on the road and travel a distance into an office. That requirement is not there now. If somebody comes on the telephone line, speaks to a CWO and needs an immediate engagement, we can facilitate that with onward connection to the local CWO, who can then, if the need arises, go out on the ground to meet the person directly in their home or at another agreed location. We are certainly in the business of trying to improve access, not restrict it, and make access to the service much easier.

The Deputy mentioned the hubs. The establishment of administrative hubs is to make the service more efficient. While the claims would go into entry points, they are then sent back to the local CWO for decision. All the hub does is prepare the claim and make it ready for the CWO.

The claim is then electronically transferred back to the local area to the local CWO for decision. It is about getting those claims into the system, improving that application process to speed it all up and removing the CWO from being involved in the administrative tasks associated with getting the claim ready for decision.

Senator Mark Wall

I thank our guests for coming in this morning for this important debate. Based on my 16 short years as a public representative, I would like to thank all the CWOs out there because, as was rightly said, they have a difficult job. They are competent in the job they do and every one of them I have dealt with in those 16 years does their job to the best of their ability. The problem, as Deputy Kerrane said, is that I am now being told I should be using emails when contacting those CWOs; that is the difference. If it was not for the CWOs I still have phone numbers for, I would not have contact with CWOs. That is wrong. It is a backward step. It is totally backward. I agree with Deputy Kerrane regarding Mr. Hession's opening statement in which he stated, "Local face-to-face engagement with customers continues to be a cornerstone of the community welfare service". I am not finding that on the ground. I am finding, like Deputy Kerrane, that it has been centralised. I have used this word several times, as have my colleagues. It is centralised into Intreo centres and now we are talking about hubs. What is the difference between a hub and an Intreo centre? Where are we going with the hub? Is the hub going to replace the 50 Intreo centres? Is that the intention of the community welfare service?

Mr. Hession also said in his opening statement that a "part-time service is provided at scheduled hours at a range of other locations". Where are those locations? Are those locations advertised? Will Mr. Hession send that information to the committee? In my experience in Athy, County Kildare, where I live, 16 years ago there was a drop-in service where one could go and talk to the CWO. As Deputy Kerrane said, Johnny and Mary would know that person and, more importantly, the CWO would know Johnny and Mary. A relationship developed with those people who needed the service most. That is gone because Johnny and Mary now have to travel to Newbridge to meet a community welfare service staff member, other than the CWO, who many answer a phone call. That is what is happening with the community welfare service. It is being centralised; I cannot emphasise that enough. That public representatives are being asked to send in representations through email and not to contact the CWO is a regressive step.

Funeral and burial expenses are a cornerstone of what the community welfare service does, but this has now been centralised. I have dealt with three cases in the last few weeks, involving three different families who received multiple letters from the CWO, the hub or the Intreo service asking for the same information. Once is bad enough; twice is criminal. I am asking about and raising this issue because I was the one, as their public representative, who sent this in at the first stage, yet they got the same information requests coming back to them twice and in one case, three times. That is wrong. It is not what the community welfare service was set up for in the first place.

Another issue that has been coming up regularly, and which I have raised regularly at this committee, is the area of housing aid, housing adaptation grants and the fact that they are set at a limit. I have asked the community welfare service to supplement that. Building costs are going through the roof so more and more people are coming to us asking us to supplement them. I would like an opinion from the witnesses about that. I have had success getting top-ups but it has been limited. For the housing aid grant, the maximum limit is €8,000 and for the housing adaptation grant, the maximum limit is €30,000. Unfortunately, some of the people who need it most are not getting it. Will the Department of Social Protection look at that? It is an essential part of the service. Until there is a new housing adaptation grant, CWOs should step in rather than sending a letter back to the individual saying that it is the local authority's business. It is not the local authority's business; they only have a set limit and those people who need it most should be helped by the community welfare service. I have had some success with that but unfortunately in other cases they have not gotten through the system and the people in question are still without that grant.

Mr. Hession mentioned that the service has 412 staff across all grades. If there were to be a staff meeting today, how many of them would be at the meeting? In other words, how many of those 412 staff are on leave? How many are out sick? How many actual staff members are there in the community welfare service? That is an important question because I am hearing that more and more CWOs are under pressure, are doing more and more and are doing multiple jobs. Will the witnesses comment on that?

Regarding the telephone answering service, it was stated that there are 1,700 calls a week. Who answers those calls? Is it a clerical officer or a CWO? If it is a CWO, that person is being taken away from another job they should be doing. If it is a clerical officer, how much experience does that clerical officer have of dealing with a claim? That is a huge problem. I honestly believe it is a huge problem at the moment. I am hearing that when these applications go into the hub, it is multiple weeks, from ten to 12 weeks, before the CWO sees the claim because there are issues with the clerical officers. I accept they have to be trained. The witnesses may say this is right or wrong; maybe my information is wrong. Before the CWO gets to see the claim, it can be anything up to ten or 12 weeks. That is leading to the problems there are with the service and the delay in people getting the services at the moment.

The community welfare service was always a great service. It helped the constituents I dealt with for 16 years. The centralisation that is happening is taking the CWO out of the community. The hubs are a retrograde step. Will the witnesses better explain the hubs and who is running them? Now, people have to get on buses where possible and, as Deputy Kerrane said, there is no public transport in other areas. This is wrong. I accept we have to move with the times. I welcome the fact that there will be an online service, but as has been said, not everybody is available and able to get online. Unfortunately, most of the people who need the services of the CWO are not in a position to go online, whereas others may be.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I thank the Senator and the Chair. I will work through some of the answers and I will then ask my colleague Mr. Hand to comment on the questions about hubs and some of the more operational points the Senator raised. I thank the Senator for his kind words about the community welfare service. We agree that it is a very important part of the Department. It involves some of our best people. We are happy to hear that the Senator feels the same and we will pass that on.

We would not characterise this as a centralised service. The hubs are there; we want to make sure that CWOs are available to meet with people to decide on claims and are not being dragged off to do clerical tasks such as scanning and uploading claims or providing the administrative support that is needed. The hubs have allowed the CWOs to get the administrative support they did not have up to now. I hope that is freeing them up further. It is not the case that the hubs are intended to replace the Intreo service. That is not what it is about. Intreo services are fundamental to the service we provide. They are around the country and that is not going to change.

Advertised office hours are available on our website. We are happy to share them with the committee. They are publicly available.

Regarding funeral and burial services, if there is a particular case the Senator wishes to flag we will have a look at it. It would not be normal to receive the same query from three places. I am not saying we get it right all the time, but it may be that there is a particular context there. If the Senator has the details, he can let us know.

The question about housing adaptation grants is a trickier one. The point I would make about the additional needs payment is that we are not supposed to be in a space where other Government Departments are already in play. If there is an issue with the cap on the housing adaptation grant and so on, perhaps it needs to be looked at in the context of that particular grant. Consideration may need to be given to whether it reflects the increase in construction costs and the budgets for that Department. Given that this work is done at local authority level, I assume the budgets are ultimately decided by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. By far the biggest component in this regard is kit-outs of largely local authority properties. To be honest, I am not sure whether we want to get more into the housing space, or whether the community welfare service should have a sweeper role across other public supports.

Regarding staff sick leave and annual leave, we are a Department of 6,500 staff so there is always an assumed attrition regarding absences, whether that is annual leave or other forms of family leave, illness, vacancies and so on. We try to staff for that so I do not have a specific figure but our Department is staffed on the understanding that we will not have 100% attendance all the time. As far as I am aware, I do not think the CWS is an outlier in relation to higher absences but I am open to correction on this.

Senator Mark Wall

Can the witness come back to us on that because it is an important issue? The Department has 432 CWOs and is getting another 74, which is brilliant but we need to know how many of those are actually working. In fairness, I appreciate that there is attrition and whatever else but it is important that we know how many CWOs are operating on a daily basis in the country.

Mr. Rónán Hession

On any given date that would vary, of course.

Senator Mark Wall

I accept that. However over a period of time the witness should be able to give an example. What we are hearing on the ground is that there is a lot of absence and sickness. I can accept a lot of that but we need to know that 412 staff is the figure or how close to that the Department can get. I am sure that figure can be provided to the committee.

Mr. Rónán Hession

It is hard to say, for example, the Deputy has said about annual leave or sickness. What period is he asking about, is it over the course of a year? People have their annual leave----

Senator Mark Wall

If the witness wants to give the committee a figure for this week, I will accept that. We can see then where the 412 are and how many people are actively working today. This week would be fine for me and I am sure for other committee members as well, Mr. Hession.

Mr. Rónán Hession

This week, my wife and kids are all sick and----

Chairman

We can come back to it with a comparable data set across a couple of work units within the Department or within the witness's own division to give us an example of the variation over a period of time.

Senator Mark Wall

I am sorry to hear about the witness's wife and kids but they are not working in the community welfare service.

Mr. Rónán Hession

My point is that this week in December when there is a lot of illnesses going around is probably not a typical week.

Senator Mark Wall

As the Chair has said, we will accept that.

Mr. Rónán Hession

Regarding the phone system and who people are talking to, there is a protocol for escalation of cases on the phones. The person spoken to initially is one of our customer service people, not a CWO. These workers are at clerical officer level. We track the number of those calls that get escalated. A person can be referred directly on to a CWO from there or the query can be dealt with on the phone. Between two thirds and three quarters of queries that come through that line are dealt with without being escalated to CWOs. In the past, that might have been a query that a CWO had to handle to explain how a scheme worked, for example. Now there is somebody else doing that from an administrative point of view so the CWO is not taken away from claim work. I will ask Mr. Hand to address the points about phone access, emails and the hub structure.

Mr. Noel Hand

The wisdom of taking CWOs away from the front line and putting them on the phone has been mentioned. Having CWOs available on the phone to deal with people right across the country is an improvement to the service, in my opinion. It goes back to my point about improving access points and having a range of these for customers so that a person does not have to leave their home to speak to a CWO. They can phone our national number and actually get to speak to a CWO if they need to. We have been particularly focused in putting experienced CWOs on that line so that they can provide a very valuable service to people. The feedback on the customer experience that we have been getting from support agencies has been very positive for people who have dealt with CWOs on that line. In some instances, CWOs have been available to make payments on the spot to people who were presenting with a particular need via phone . They can also facilitate an onward engagement at a local level and get somebody to go out and physically meet the person. I would say it is a very valuable improvement to our service.

The hub is designed to speed up the time it takes to get the claim directly in front of a CWO for decision. We want to have that done in a number of days so that when the person makes the application that it has got to the point where it is ready for decision by a CWO. As soon as that process of making the claim ready is completed and all of the information is collated and ready, it is then passed digitally on to the CWO. The more information and supporting documentation that a person can provide at claim entry point the better. That will speed up the time taken to get that claim in front of the CWO. The hub system is improving those times and claims now can be with a CWO in a number of days. That is an improvement. It would be inaccurate to say that it is taking up to 12 weeks for a claim to get past the hub and out to the CWO. That is not the case. The hub is designed to get the claim in, get it ready, get it out to the local CWO for decision as quickly as possible. The hubs are staffed by staff at clerical officer, executive officer and higher executive officer level. They all have the focus of getting the claim ready for it to be transmitted back to the local CWO for decision within the shortest possible time. That is what we have been working towards. The intention is to expand our hub network and to establish three new ones. We will have hubs in Cork, Galway and Sligo. They will support the locally based CWOs to get the claims out to them as quickly as possible. This enables us to continue with local engagement with our customers.

I am not entirely sure what went on in the case of the person with the funeral expense who was mentioned earlier but I will certainly look into the matter. If that claim came through the hub it would have gone back out to the local CWO. Perhaps it was dealt with differently but I would say that it is an unusual case. For funeral expenses, that is something that we are particularly focused on, given the circumstances of the case, to ensure that the family is supported as quickly as possible. Sometimes with funerals it can take time for the claim to be brought to a stage where it can be decided because the bills from the undertakers and other expenses that have been incurred have not come in. Of the claims that we have awaiting decision, the longer ones are probably in that category, the more complex cases that we deal with. The intention of the hub is to get the claim into the system as quickly as possible, get it ready for decision and get it back to the local CWO as quickly as possible. I am talking about days really if all of the information has been provided. There should be an improvement seen in our processing times and an improvement in the time it takes to get the case before a CWO. As my colleague, Mr. Hession said, we do not want CWO taking up their valuable time with clerical, administrative tasks, writing to people looking for bills and receipts and collating that information.

We want to remove that so the claim is given to them and all they have to do is decide the claim and make the payment.

Chairman

We all accept the community welfare officer service plays a valuable role and, as colleagues have said, provides a key point of contact with the health service initially and now the Department of Social Protection since it moved across. I recall individuals such as Eddie Bourke in Strokestown and previously in south Roscommon, who knew not only the family, but also the previous generation and their particular circumstances. While from an administrative point of view, the paperwork would show sufficient income coming in, Mr. Bourke would know the addiction issues or the domestic dynamic in a particular house and know where assistance was needed. That level of knowledge has been lost because the CWOs do not have that understanding. Part of the difficulty and the frustration of members is that as staff retired, the newer staff that came in are based in central offices. They are not out in the community and they do not have the same level of understanding of the issues on the ground through no fault of their own. They do not understand the schemes either.

I came across a situation where a victim of domestic violence was told to go to the local authority for assistance when there is a clear strand of funding that is supposed to be made available. The case was certified by a domestic violence organisation. It should have happened automatically but I had to intervene for that payment to be made. That is a standard case. The level of understanding is not there because we have a lot of new staff coming in. There has been a changeover and the staff are not being given support through the system. That is part of the problem. The past 12 months have been an especially challenging time for everyone and for the CWOs trying to deal with challenging individual circumstances. Conscious support needs to be provided to the staff. Part of the difficulty is that there is much more paperwork with centralisation. The CWO must justify making a payment that is out of the ordinary. That creates an additional administrative burden and from talking to the more senior CWOs, I understand the newer people see that as a discouragement or barrier to sanctioning a payment.

I will pick up on Mr. Hession's comment that a CWO should not be seen as a sweeper role. That is the purpose of the CWO. It is not only an arm of the Department of Social Protection. It is supposed to deal with housing issues in situations, for example when the alternative is for people to go into long-term nursing home care because they do not have the resources to meet the top-up payment to carry out adaptations to the house. Housing accommodation - not white goods and furniture - was always a key aspect of the role of the CWO long before it came under the Department of Social Protection. It is important that is not lost in the process.

I will come to the reorganisation. I understand the logic for it during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the face-to-face contact was lost in the reorganisation that took place as a result of Covid-19. I accept that having access to a senior CWO who has experience via the helpline is a good avenue, but we are losing local impact and engagement. For example, in my constituency of west Roscommon - Mr. Henry knows it well - people should not have to come physically into Roscommon town to access a CWO. The reality is the number of times the CWO goes out whether to Castlerea or Ballaghadereen is minimal and I understand it is being frowned on or discouraged. People must come in or make contact over the phone and they do not have the financial resources to do so. If people are in a situation of financial difficulty, they do not have the money to put petrol in the car or to pay a taxi to come to Roscommon. That is part of the problem.

I raised an issue regarding a constituent who contacted me with the Minister when she came before the committee a few weeks ago. This typifies some of the challenges. A woman contacted my office because she needed the assistance of a supplementary welfare payment. We sent her the SWA1 form which she completed. This woman is certified as blind and in receipt of the blind pension. With the assistance of some relatives she filled out the form and submitted her bank statement because most of her transactions are done through the bank. She received an unsigned letter from the Intreo office asking her to fill out all the same information again. The first thing she did was ring me to tell me that I got her to fill out the wrong form. I told her I did not. I have looked for the form from the Department and cannot get it. Yet this woman who is certified blind had to submit a second form. It was submitted a month ago and she still has not had any response. This is for assistance to purchase oil. The documentation has been sent a second time yet there is no engagement. There is no contact number or name on the form. While we are being told we are being more proactive, there is an individual whose case should have been dealt with. If it was not dealt with, someone should have contacted the woman because it was obvious she was in receipt of the blind pension in the past. She is now a pensioner and it is not easy for her to do this. These are the types of things that are happening. This is what is leading to the frustration we are dealing with and it is adding immense pressure for staff who are overworked in terms of demands but also in terms of the psychological pressure they are dealing with. They are making significant decisions on challenging circumstances.

I vehemently defended the culture of discretion down through the years. As Mr. Henry knows, we sometimes heard the criticism that CWOs had too much discretion. It has gone too far the other way now. The level of discretion and encouragement to use it need to be actively supported by senior levels in the Department. It would be better to make one or two mistakes in giving a payment unnecessarily than to leave people in a desperate situation. That was always the culture in the CWO service and it led to job satisfaction for staff. The reality is that many of the experienced staff are frustrated with how the service has developed. Many of the more senior people are moving out of the service into other areas and the staff who are left do not have the institutional knowledge and understanding of how this system has traditionally worked. It has resulted in the frustration we and the customers are feeling and is leading to a more difficult and challenging experience for staff who work in the service on a day-to-day basis. I hope the witnesses will take that away and provide the necessary support to the staff who are dealing with a difficult challenging situation.

They are the most vital cog in our support service right across the system in terms of the financial challenges families are dealing with on a daily basis.

Mr. Rónán Hession

I will ask Mr. Henry to come in on a couple of points. I respect what the Chair, and the other Deputies and Senators are saying. Deputies and Senators have on-the-ground engagement with people in the area. This is coming from the real world and is not an abstract question of organisation and service design. This is about what is happening on the ground and there are real life cases. There is always a challenge around the culture of any organisation. There is a culture in our Department of being very customer focused and of helping. That is what we are here to do. We try to preserve that. Of course, there will be churn and generational change in staff. There is not a quick way of maintaining that other than to instill core values in our staff. I think they are there. As I said in reply to Deputy Kerrane earlier, the numbers we are seeing for this year are close to 100,000. Last year it was 55,000. That points to how the CWOs are trying to help and respond. We are not trying to frustrate people with paperwork, but I hear the point. I will not say it works smoothly in all cases. Training is an area we take seriously around the Department. Training is the kind of thing staff have to do again and again. It is also about the pace of work. The pace of change we have faced over the past number of years has been extraordinary. Tomorrow I will be 25 years in the Civil Service. The past three years have been the busiest. More generally, I emphasise that we are not talking about a withdrawal from face-to-face engagement and centralisation. What we want is for CWOs to be free from the administration and paperwork to do what they do best. We want to make sure they have a presence in the community and that they are available either to be visited or to go out and visit. That is what we want. I will pass over to Mr. Henry, and Mr. Hand may also wish to contribute.

Mr. Des Henry

The staffing and the officers' experience in the roles is constantly evolving. Unfortunately, we are like a lot of other Departments where we have an ageing staff. None of us is getting any younger and experience is there. I appreciate the value of the officer who was referred to, in terms of his local community and the work he did. There is no question about that. The policy is there not alone to support the public but to support officers. CWOs have discretion. All our circulars, notes and guidance point out that the officer has discretion to make a payment. The policy and systems are not there to hinder an officer making a decision. However, an officer has to satisfy himself or herself that the need is there. If documentation is required to support it, that is perfectly valid. Nobody is telling a CWO with a case in front of him or her that they do not want him or her to take a decision or delay a decision on a particular case.

The sweeper role of the CWO was also mentioned. We accept it is there, but primarily the need has to be urgent and something the individual either cannot meet himself or herself or cannot be supported in by some other relevant agency or Department. That is the way the system is. The idea of somebody travelling from Castlerea or Ballaghaderreen to Roscommon is not what we intend for people to do, to access the community welfare service. We are trying to improve our channels, whether through telephone channels, for example. However, ultimately as Mr. Hand said, the idea is that the local officer will make the decision about the local case. That will always be the situation. As Mr. Hession mentioned in his opening statement, we also need to ensure that there is a consistent and responsive approach among CWOs, in terms of new officers having that experience and training. That is something we also want to do. As the Deputy will be aware, when the community welfare service came into the Department it was a massive change for experienced CWOs coming from the former HSE. It takes time for change to bed in and that has happened. We will make 98,000 additional needs payments this year. The particular case of the blind individual should not have happened. We will be happy to look at that case and provide an update, if we are sent the details. To be fair, that is what we have done with all cases and at all times where we have received correspondence or representations. Whoever it is, we have responded to the particular case and, where possible, have tried to address and finalise a case. We will continue to do that.

Chairman

In that particular case I submitted the supplementary evidence by email one month ago. The Department has had it for a month from me directly, where I explained the whole circumstance.

Mr. Des Henry

I would be very happy to follow up on that if the Chair will send me the details. I am not questioning whether he did. It should not be the case that somebody should wait that time. We will look at that. We understand that the recent period has been particularly difficult for staff, and particularly for the community welfare service. We can see this year that the volumes of applications dealt with are considerable. That is the reason the Department has sought additional resources to go in and support those officers. They are the front line and the cornerstone of the delivery of additional needs payments, and a plethora of other payments such as the humanitarian aid scheme, and daily expenses allowance. As Mr. Hession said, the service they provide is excellent. Change is always difficult for us all. I would say that and I am no different from anybody else. However, ultimately what the Department is about here is trying to be more responsive, more sympathetic and deal with the needs. We are not there yet, but the plan is to improve as we go along and that is what we will do.

Finally, Deputy Kerrane mentioned those who are suffering from domestic violence. We are working with partners across Tusla and the various providers. We have introduced a direct route for access to rent supplement for victims of domestic violence. We are working on developing a policy around supporting our CWOs in dealing with victims of domestic violence, and ensuring that a timely and responsive service is available for those who experience domestic violence.

Mr. Noel Hand

I was listening very closely to what the Chair said. I agree 100% with everything he said. The establishment of the national community welfare service will be a big change. It is one that will assist the delivery of our service across the country. We are on a journey to bring in a series of supports for our locally-based CWOs, including the establishment of a dedicated training team. That is something they did not have before. We want to provide them with supports and empower them to do exactly what the Chair is saying. The discretion available to CWOs is a big part of what they do.

In the discussions I have been having with them, we want them to use their discretion. It is not that we are hindering them in any way or restricting the amount that they should pay for a particular thing or in what they need to do to bring a case to a successful conclusion for the customer; quite the opposite. In some ways that is a culture change because maybe they feel that the Department is restricting them in some way when, in fact, that is not the case. We say if in doubt to apply their discretion, make the payment, and assist the person. We see the CWOs as very much there to help the people and not in any way to be restrictive. That is what we are about.

Chairman

Deputy Kerrane wants to come in so I will leave this final point with Mr. Hand. The difficulty is that probably a lot of those staff are coming from other sections within the Department, where there is a culture of control, naturally enough, in respect all schemes where they tick the boxes as regards to whether people are eligible. Maybe the culture needs to change in that engagement whereas the previous staff who were there came in from the old health boards that had a very different cultural approach. It could be down to the training those staff get, and the support they get could overcome a lot of the challenges we are talking about.

Deputy Claire Kerrane

It is quite frustrating that the witnesses do not seem to acknowledge that CWOs have been removed from the community. We have all said it. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has raised issues regarding accessibility and its staff take 2,000 calls for assistance per week. We are not all wrong and there is an issue. The witnesses have repeatedly referred to the phone. What about people who either do not want to speak over the phone, do not have a phone, are in domestic violence situations where they cannot pick up a phone and talk to someone for ten minutes about their circumstances or arrange a meeting, or older and vulnerable people who do not have that option and will not use the phone? Then their option is to drive to Roscommon but they cannot get to Roscommon.

The witnesses have spoken a lot about CWOs and what they are doing. Have they engaged directly with them? What I have heard from some of them is that people who are in need are not getting the service. That is alarming. Have the witnesses spoken directly to all of the CWOs, even in recent weeks and months as this cost-of-living crisis has worsened? Everyone in this room wants additional access. That is brilliant but what the Department has done is taken CWOs out of communities and rural towns and offered them a phone service and said that they will meet people in their house or meet them here and there. The Department has taken away the community base and the local knowledge where the community welfare officer knows the person and their circumstances and they are best placed to make the decision rather than have someone fill in a 16-page form, send it to Tuam or whatever hub, wait weeks and weeks, and then it goes back to the CWO, they wait longer and they then get the payment. I just do not see the point in that, whereas people could go into the health centre and speak to the CWO and can get the payment - job done. I still do not understand that. People in rural areas cannot easily get to the 50 Intreo centres. This is still a problem and it is frustrating that we are all raising it and the witnesses just do not seem to acknowledge that they have been removed from the community. I urge them to engage every CWO on these matters. That is so important.

Chairman

Mr. Hession might respond and wrap up also as we are close to our time limit.

Mr. Rónán Hession

We have tried to reassure. We do take the feedback and concerns seriously. We are not coming in with a defensive attitude or with an attitude of trying to explain our way around things. We are genuinely committed to on-the-ground, face-to-face engagement and a presence in local communities and local CWOs with that local knowledge using it to try to assist people. We have close engagement with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and directly with CWOs around the country and I might ask Mr. Hand to speak a bit about that.

Mr. Noel Hand

Modern technology allows us in the Department to have the facility to be able to reach out and engage with CWOs. I have regular engagements with them at a national level but also out on the ground and meeting them when I am out and about. That ongoing engagement is happening all of the time directly with them through multiple channels. There is not only that engagement directly with staff but also with other organisations directly involved with the customers. The Deputy mentioned one of the organisations and I have also been meeting its representatives. They have undertaken member surveys as well on how the community welfare service has been operating. We have taken that feedback and we really try to respond directly to the issues that have been raised with us. My sense of it is that the service has improved over the course of 2022 and we are making every effort to try to make our service more responsive, more accessible, to improve processing times and to reduce wait times. All of those are important. At the end of the day, to get the claim decided and get the person paid is what we are really trying to do.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Hession, Mr. Hand and Mr. Henry for their engagement with the committee and for answering the questions and the issues raised by the members. I am sure we will be back in touch with them again on this. Ultimately, we are all at one on where we need to get to and it is a matter of trying to bed down the huge transition and change that has taken place, particularly with the staff dealing with the pressures at the moment. I take this opportunity to wish the witnesses, all the staff in the Department and particularly the community welfare officers across the country a happy and peaceful Christmas. We look forward to further engagement with them in the new year.

That concludes the committee's business in public session. I propose the committee goes into private session to consider other business.

The joint committee went into private session at 12.27 p.m. and adjourned at 12.32 p.m. sine die.