Sandra McLellan
Question:430. Deputy Sandra McLellan asked the Minister for Social Protection the current waiting time for carer's allowance to be processed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57997/12]
View answerWednesday, 16 January 2013
Questions (430)
Written answers
While the time taken at present to process some carer’s allowance claims is not satisfactory, good inroads have been made over the last number of months by my Department to clear the current backlog and a plan is in place to process the remaining backlogged claims by the end of Q1 2013. I am happy that the actions they are taking will achieve this.
Following the completion of a major service delivery modernisation project, an in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project was completed for the carer’s allowance scheme. This project focused on optimising output and customer service and the reduction of backlogs. The outcome of the review is the division of work into two streams. From Monday 3 September 2012, one team concentrates on dealing with new claim intake and processes these without delay and the other team is working on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear and targeted plan for its elimination. It is expected that the backlogged claims will all be processed by the end of March 2013.