I confirm that the Department is in receipt of an application for carer’s allowance from the person in question on the 11th of May 2012. The application is with a deciding officer for a decision. The person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome.
I acknowledge that the time taken to process carer’s allowance claims at present is not satisfactory but I am satisfied that the Department is taking appropriate action to resolve the situation.
The carer’s allowance section has recently completed a major service delivery modernisation project to improve the efficiency with which it processes applications from clients for carer’s allowance. The project involved the development of IT functionality which was fully deployed in June 2012.
Following the completion of the modernisation project, an in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project commenced for the carer’s allowance scheme. This BPI project is focused on optimising output and customer service and the reduction of backlogs. Initial focus was placed on clearing the backlog of carer’s allowance claims awaiting scanning and registration. Over July and August 2012, 4,414 claims were scanned and registered, clearing the backlog completely. Claims are now scanned within a day or two of being received.
The focus has now moved to the processing of new claims. Processing of claims has been divided into two streams. One concentrates on dealing with new claim intake and processing these without delay. The second stream works on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear and targeted plan for its elimination. Implementation of the plan commenced on Monday 3 September and progress after 5 weeks of operation is very encouraging.
During the month of September 2012 1,147 carer’s allowance claims were received, while 1,317 claims were decided. This performance level will continue to improve and the number of claims pending decision and the average processing times will continue to reduce. However, it will take a number of months before the backlog is cleared. The allocation and management of available resources to this task continues to be closely monitored to ensure optimum effectiveness.
