Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 November 2012
128. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Social Protection the value and number of families paid arrears to date in 2012 under the family income supplement scheme; the steps she is taking to ensure that all renewal applications are cleared immediately and that new applications in the system for months receive a determination before Christmas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53497/12]
View answerThe Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers.
FIS claims, both new and renewal, received on or after the 5th November 2012 are currently being processed on receipt. Currently there are 28,295 families in receipt of FIS, getting an average payment of €106.34 per week. The estimated scheme expenditure for 2012 is €199.46 million. It is not possible to differentiate the amount representing arrears payments from the amount representing normal weekly payments in the total scheme expenditure. When cases are decided customers are awarded arrears back to the date of application. Deductions are made for any overlapping Social Welfare payments that may have been made in the period concerned. I can confirm that almost all FIS claims, both new and renewal, which were awarded during 2012, approximately 32,560 cases up to the end of October, will have received some payment of arrears.
An in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project has recently been completed for the FIS scheme. This project focused on optimising output, improving customer service and the elimination of backlogs. Part of the project was a detailed examination of workloads and a full assessment of existing capacity within the area and what capacity is needed in order to process the volumes of claims, both new and renewal, being received on a weekly basis.
The outcome of this review is a detailed plan outlining the process required to manage both the continuous weekly intake and backlog claims clearance. This plan sees the current weekly new claim and renewal intake processed by one team, while the backlog is ring-fenced and a focused team assigned to this work with a clear plan for its elimination.
The team including additional temporary resources has been identified and is already assigned and working on the backlog claims. In order to reduce the time it will take to eliminate the backlog, some claims are being processed outside of Longford Social Welfare Services Office. This team is fully focussed on the elimination of the backlog of claims in the shortest possible timeframe, concentrating in the first instance on those claims which were previously in payment but where payment has expired and continuing on to first-time new claims. Within those categories, those waiting the longest will be processed first.
While it is not possible to clear all claims in the backlog before Christmas, every effort will be made to pay as many eligible claims as possible in that timeframe. It is expected that the backlog will be fully eliminated by the end of March 2013. Claims which are approved by the backlog team will be backdated to the date of claim or the date of expiry of the previous claim, as appropriate, and all arrears due will be paid.
