Seán Fleming
Question:388. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Social Protection the steps she will to eliminate the backlog in processing carer's allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51227/12]
View answerTuesday, 20 November 2012
Questions (388)
Written answers
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.
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 and associated business process re-organisation. Full deployment of the new system for Carer’s Allowance was completed in June 2012.
Initial focus was placed on clearing the backlog of CA applications awaiting scanning and registration. An additional 4 temporary staff were allocated to this effort. Over July and August 2012, 4,414 applications were scanned and registered - clearing the scanning backlog completely. Applications are now scanned within a day or two of being received.
The focus then moved to the processing of new applications. Processing of applications was divided into two streams. One concentrates on dealing with new application intake and processes these without delay and the other on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear and targeted plan for its elimination. The 4 temporary staff originally allocated to scanning duties were reassigned to CA application processing to support this plan. Implementation of the plan commenced on Monday 3 September. During the month of September 2012 1,147 CA applications were received, while 1,317 were decided. In October 2012 1,061 CA applications were received, while 2,520 were decided.
Under the initial plan, elimination of the backlog of CA applications was targeted for the end of May 2013. However, within the current month, a further additional 10 temporary staff have been assigned to CA section. This further injection of resources brings the target for backlog elimination the backlog of CA forward to the end of March 2013.
The allocation of available resources to this task continues to be monitored and managed to ensure that the backlog is eliminated in the quickest possible time.