Written Answers Nos. 631 to 642
635. Deputy Sandra McLellan asked the Minister for Social Protection the reason foster parents who foster children long term are not entitled to the back to school clothing and footwear allowance; if same will be reviewed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35092/13]
View answerThe back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the extra costs when children start school each autumn. The allowance is not intended to meet the full cost of school clothing and footwear but only to provide assistance towards these costs. The Government has provided €48.8 million for the scheme in 2013. The financial support available to foster parents from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs includes assistance with the cost of clothing and footwear for the foster child. Accordingly, the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is not payable in respect of foster children. Any change to the scheme which would incur additional expenditure would have to be considered in a budgetary context.
637. Deputy Frank Feighan asked the Minister for Social Protection when a decision will issue on an application for carer's allowance in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Roscommon. [35113/13]
View answerI confirm that the department received an application for carer’s allowance from the person in question on 21 May 2013. The medical assessment has been completed. The application is currently with a social welfare investigative officer for assessment of means and confirmation that all the conditions for receipt of carer’s allowance are satisfied. Once the investigative officer has completed and submitted the report, a deciding officer will make a decision. The application will be processed as quickly as possible and when a decision is made the person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome
640. Deputy Nicky McFadden asked the Minister for Social Protection the actions taken by her Department to clear backlogs of social welfare claims processed in the Longford office; if there has been a subsequent improvement in processing times and responses as a result of these actions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35151/13]
View answerFollowing the completion of the Service Delivery Modernisation projects involving the developments of new information technology systems in Invalidity Pension, Carer’s Allowance and Disability Allowance a rolling programme of business process improvement (BPI) commenced for all schemes managed in Longford HQ. The objective of these projects was to introduce significant processing efficiencies and a quicker and more responsive service to our customer in the face of increased claim loads.
I am very pleased to say that claims involved in these backlogs have now all been actioned and in most cases cleared. The only area that is not yet fully cleared is Disability Allowance but major progress has been made and a plan is in place to action all backlogged applications by the end of July 2013. New claims in all the schemes are being actioned promptly upon receipt. The current average time to decide a new disability allowance application is now 7 weeks; invalidity pension is now 6 weeks; carer’s allowance is now 8 weeks: FIS is less than 2 week for new claims and in advance for renewals.
Following such a high volume of claim clearance in the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013 the resulting volume of appeals is similarly high. The time these appeals claims take to clear negatively affects the overall average time taken to award a claim, but processing times on these schemes will continue to improve as appeals are worked through the system and cleared.
In summary, the prompt processing of claims is the priority for all scheme mangers. Each scheme area is continuously monitoring its processes, procedures and the organisation of work to ensure that processing capability is maximised.
641. Deputy Nicky McFadden asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of integrated employment and support service Intreo offices operating here; if further offices will open this year; where those offices will open; if she will report on the success of Intreo offices so far in providing income and employment supports for job seekers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35172/13]
View answerThe delivery of the Intreo service comprises a number of elements. The main elements being:
i. The integration of the various welfare decision making processes to speed up decision making and minimise recourse to supplementary welfare payments.
ii. The introduction of a profiling process to capture the unique characteristics and service requirements of each jobseeker.
iii. The implementation of a systematic group activation engagement and one to one process based on clients’ profiles.
iv. The delivery of a ‘one-stop-shop’ service from an integrated office location.
Elements (i) to (iii) are being rolled out, are already in place in many offices and will be in place in all offices by the end of the year.
The delivery of over 60 One-Stop-Shop Intreo Offices is a major logistical property project for the Department and the Office of Public Works which is responsible for the provision of the Department’s property requirements, including refurbishment and fit out works. The Intreo Project requires the acquisition and development of some new properties and the remodelling and refurbishment of others. All of this also entails the reaccommodation of staff including the transfer and set-up of IT, furniture and other utilities across multiple locations.
Notwithstanding the complexity of such a large property programme, twelve offices are now providing the full Intreo service. Preparations are under way in other offices and it is expected that a total of 43 offices will be delivering the full Intreo service by the end of 2013. The plans for the remainder of 2013 are now being finalised and details of the office locations to which the new service will be rolled out will be published in due course.
The rollout of Intreo offices is key to delivering on the Pathways to Work strategy. There are five strands to the Pathways approach relating to:
1. Engagement with people who are unemployed.
2. The provision of activation places and opportunities.
3. Incentivising the take-up of opportunities.
4. Working with employers.
5 Reforming institutions.
642. Deputy Nicky McFadden asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress being made in issuing public services cards; the rationale for their issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35173/13]
View answer649. Deputy Paudie Coffey asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of public service cards that have been issued since their introduction on a county basis in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35345/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 642 and 649 together.
The Department of Social Protection (DSP) has developed, in conjunction with a number of other Government Departments, a rules based standard for establishing and authenticating an individual’s identity for the purposes of access to public services. This programme of work, which is known as the Standard Authentication Framework Environment or SAFE for short, also provided for the introduction of a Public Services Card (PSC) to enable individuals to gain access to public services more efficiently and with a minimum of duplication of effort, while at the same time preserving their privacy to the maximum extent possible.
It is anticipated that the introduction of the PSC will result in a number of financial and other benefits including:
- Reduction in the rate of fraud and errors caused by incorrectly identified and authenticated individuals.
- Improvement in existing cards (e.g. Social Services Cards and Free Travel), through better security features, considerably reducing the potential for forgery and fraudulent use.
- Improvement in the efficiency of every service delivered by the State through the removal of the duplication caused by multiple agencies each solving the problem of identity and authentication themselves.
A PSC is currently issued following a registration process, which involves the capture/utilisation of an individual’s photograph and signature and the verification of identity data already held by the Department. To date, the Department has deployed two registration methods – a "face to face" process involving personal attendance at a DSP Office and a centrally managed "reduced process" which does not require personal attendance but rather utilises data already held by other State agencies (in the first instance, the Passport Office).
The face to face registration process is now live in over 51 DSP Offices with 112 SAFE Stations in production. Some 565 staff have been trained. Over 270,000 PSCs have been issued to date. The majority of these cards have been issued to new claimants for Jobseekers Benefit-Allowance and applicants for a new PPS number in Local Offices that have been equipped to carry out SAFE registrations. The following table sets out the number of PSC cardholders in each county as at 8 July 2013, the latest date for which such a breakdown is available.
No. of PSC cardholders by County 08/07/2013
|
County |
No. of Public Service Card cardholders |
|
Antrim |
216 |
|
Armagh |
78 |
|
Carlow |
3,408 |
|
Cavan |
601 |
|
Clare |
4,386 |
|
Cork |
3,993 |
|
Derry |
63 |
|
Donegal |
16,270 |
|
Down |
391 |
|
Dublin |
121,659 |
|
Fermanagh |
45 |
|
Galway |
4,038 |
|
Kerry |
9,950 |
|
Kildare |
3,628 |
|
Kilkenny |
6,130 |
|
Laois |
1,093 |
|
Leitrim |
3,262 |
|
Limerick |
4,009 |
|
Longford |
5,313 |
|
Louth |
6,530 |
|
Mayo |
9,190 |
|
Meath |
5,309 |
|
Monaghan |
426 |
|
Offaly |
5,179 |
|
Roscommon |
2,041 |
|
Sligo |
9,151 |
|
Tipperary |
7,544 |
|
Tyrone |
48 |
|
Waterford |
7,266 |
|
Westmeath |
6,272 |
|
Wexford |
7,805 |
|
Wicklow |
8,188 |
|
Total |
263,482 |
