Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 October 2012
167. Deputy Michael Creed asked the Minister for Social Protection if, in view of the very considerable delays in relation to processing claims for family income supplement, she will consider processing all new claims as a priority and leaving ongoing claims in payment until such time as her Department has time to review these; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45146/12]
View answerThe Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.
The average waiting time for new family income supplement (FIS) claims at the end of September was 18 weeks and for renewal applications was 19 weeks. At the end of September, there were 7,020 new FIS applications and 8,344 renewal applications awaiting decision. The volume of FIS claims on hands and the delays in processing are a consequence of continued strong claim intake.
An in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project has recently commenced for the FIS scheme. This project will focus on optimising output and customer service and the elimination of backlogs. The project is undertaking a detailed examination of workloads and capacity from which a plan will be developed and implement to allow the normal weekly new claim intake to be processed without delay and the backlog to be ring-fenced and eliminated over a specified target period.
While all options for the elimination of backlogs are being actively considered, there are no plans at present to permit FIS payment to continue at the existing rate while awaiting renewal.
