I propose taking Questions Nos. 49 and 70 together.
The supplementary welfare allowance scheme is administered on my Department's behalf by the community welfare service in the health boards. The scheme is currently being reviewed by an interdepartmental working group chaired by my Department as part of my Department's series of expenditure reviews.
The current review is a fundamental appraisal of the scheme aimed primarily at improving customer service and administrative efficiency. All aspects of the scheme are being examined. The review also provides an opportunity to re-focus the scheme and the health boards' community welfare service of which it is part to become more effective in tackling poverty and social exclusion.
The first stage of the review procedure involved an examination of the objectives of the scheme and included a widespread consultation process. This resulted in 145 submissions being received by the group. The issues raised in these submissions were read, summarised and grouped under 18 relevant themes by the working group members.
Within these 18 themes over 700 different issues were raised. The points raised ranged from six comments on the co-ordination of welfare services to over 100 comments on the involvement of community welfare officers, CWOs, in dealing with housing issues. There were almost 100 comments each on the future direction for the community welfare service and the role of the community welfare officer. The particular points made included: there should be more integration of social services; too much CWO time is spent on routine payment processing; and too much CWO time is spent dealing with long-term needs, including housing supplements, which are inappropriate to a safety net scheme. A number of submissions made the point that these activities hamper the service in taking a leading role in tackling poverty and social exclusion at community level. A tabular statement setting out the 18 themes and showing the number of issues raised under each theme follows.
The working group propose establishing sub-groups to examine these issues in detail. Superintendent and community welfare officers as well as staff in my Department were invited to nominate themselves for such sub-groups if they wished.