Vol. 558 No. 5
92 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the total number of officers in her Department who are involved in the administration of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance; if there has been an increase in the staffing in view of the recent rise in the level of registered unemployment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24742/02]
The administration of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance is mainly carried out by staff of my Department in 57 local offices throughout the country. There were 1,195 staff allocated to my Department's local offices at the beginning of the year and this has increased to 1,206 at the end of November. The staffing level is reviewed formally on a regular basis and adjusted to reflect demands arising from changes in the claim load and other factors. In addition, there are 68 branch offices which are operated on a contract basis by branch managers. Under the terms of their contract, branch managers are required to provide adequate staff resources to deal with the workload in their office and this is monitored on an ongoing basis.
There are 392 social welfare inspectors, part of whose work is to investigate and report on claims to unemployment benefit and assistance. There are also eight staff serving in the central headquarters support area for local and branch offices.
There were 157,706 persons on the live register at the end of October and this compared with a figure of 141,835 at the same time last year.
