Thomas Gould
Question:250. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Social Protection the current average wait time for an additional needs payment and an urgent needs payment in Cork city. [45303/22]
View answerThursday, 15 September 2022
Questions (250)
Written answers
The Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme is the safety net within the overall Social Welfare system in that it provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependents. Supports provided under the SWA scheme can consist of a basic weekly payment, a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of certain expenses, as well as single additional needs payments.
Under the SWA scheme, my Department can make additional needs payments to help meet expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. This is an overarching term used to refer to exceptional and urgent needs payments, and certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from the client’s own resources and are deemed to be necessary.Payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme, taking into account the requirements of the legislation, and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance.
The CWS is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. Based on the available data, it is estimated that 50% of applications for Additional Needs Payments are finalised within 0-4 weeks and 90% are finalised within 0-8 weeks. We are focusing our resources on reducing our processing times and it is anticipated that these times will reduce over the coming weeks; this will be dependent, however, on the volumes of new applications received. Where an application is not finalised within 0-4 weeks, this is generally due to additional information or documentation being requested from the customer to support their application.
I wish to reassure the Deputy that claim processing is kept under active review and we will continue in our efforts to further improve the service.
I trust this clarifies the matter.