I am superintendent community welfare officer in the Mid-Western Health Board. Mr. Tony Walsh is a full-time union official branch secretary with SIPTU. Mr. Price is complaints and appeals officer in the South-Eastern Health Board and Messrs Lennon and McGloin are both acting superintendent community welfare officers in the eastern region.
As most members of the committee will be aware, we in the community welfare service administer the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, provide information and advocacy for our customers, as well as assessment of various entitlements for health services. A large part of our work concerns the delivery of supplementary welfare allowance and it is to this end that we are addressing the committee today.
From the perspective of SIPTU, we feel we are very much under the microscope, and have been in recent years because we were subject to a series of reviews involving our service. One review was carried out by the rent-mortgages group of 1996, whereby an interdepartmental committee was set up to examine the future of the rents-mortgages-payments. This group reported in 1999 and brought about the setting up of another interdepartmental committee, the rent planning group. The unions were refused direct access to the process, despite our requests, and were limited to making a submission.
The supplementary welfare allowance review group was set up in 2000 and was to be a root and branch examination of supplementary welfare allowance and its future. It had a series of meetings in 2000 but did not meet again until recent weeks. Again, the unions were refused membership of the committee. A back-to-school review group, which was another interdepartmental committee, was set up to examine the back-to-school scheme administered by our service. It met over a series of years and apparently finished its work recently. Again, the unions were refused membership of the group. Another interdepartmental group, the needs assessment group, was set up to examine the adequacy of payments made to asylum seekers. It has finished its deliberations and presented a report to the Minister, and it would appear that no further action has been taken. Once again, we in the unions were refused membership of the committee. Members of the committee will now understand why we feel so grateful that we have been allowed present our case.
The supplementary welfare allowance scheme has been in operation since 1977. The initial legislation, the Social Welfare (Supplementary Welfare Allowances) Act 1975, has been replaced by the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1993. The scheme is administered by community welfare officers in the health boards under the general direction and control of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs. There are almost 700 community welfare officers and 53 superintendents employed by the health boards.
When the scheme was set up by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr. Frank Cluskey, it was intended to be more than a mere cash response. It was seen to have a wider social objective of playing a major role in the community, intervening in a positive manner with a comprehensive range of non-monetary social work services to try to help break the cycle of poverty in which some families found themselves. The scheme was seen as an integral part of the overall social welfare income maintenance structure. To quote the Official Report of 24 June 1975, Mr. Cluskey stated:
Such a service should also help those whose needs are inadequately met under the major schemes and those confronted with emergency situations. . . . The problems of those who will need to avail of these allowances will, in most cases, be of a nature calling for more than a mere cash response.
He also said that organising the administration of the social welfare allowance scheme through the health boards "will enable the service to be operated within the framework of the community care services of these boards." This was clearly his intention.
It was Mr. Cluskey's contention, therefore, that the service was best placed in the context of a holistic, multi-disciplinary, locally based service delivery model within the health boards. It is our contention that this still applies today and we are here because we fear there is an attempt to place us under the exclusive control of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. We contend that such a placement would interfere with the flexibility with which we currently administer the scheme and that we would be heading towards a more prescriptive, rather than discretionary, model of service delivery. It would also be to the detriment of the approach that Mr. Cluskey outlined.
In suggesting the way forward, a brief examination of the Official Report of the time the legislation was introduced is relevant. Principal issues that were highlighted in the debates were: the need to ensure basic minimum income for everyone; the need for uniform application of basic rates and means tests throughout the country; the pressing need to eliminate the stigma attached to recipients; the need to alleviate poverty and prevent its recurrence; the need for a flexible system which could respond speedily to individual needs; the need to have a community based welfare service not just providing cash assistance but also wide-ranging information advocacy and referral services.
In its section 16 publication pertaining to freedom of information, the Department of Social and Family Affairs reflects its view of the scheme as simply a supplementary income maintenance scheme and its lack of interest in the development of a full community welfare service, as originally envisaged. It is not clear when the Department lost sight of the welfare role, but it has undoubtedly slipped from its agenda. The welfare role remains an intrinsic and inseparable part of our service but it has not been allowed to develop because of the use of the scheme to compensate for shortcomings in the Department's mainstream schemes, among other things. Is it significant that the word "welfare" has been removed from the Department's title?
The scheme now caters for a vastly greater number of people than it did in the 1970s, which shows that it was capable of responding to need. Its success in responding to the vastly increased needs - particularly as unemployment grew in the 1980s - has meant that it has been confined to the income maintenance role only and not allowed to develop. It has been effective in providing minimum income, it has responded to the needs of people living in the private rented sector and it has dealt with emerging needs. The asylum seeker issue serves as a prime example in this respect; when we were asked to deal with something that arose relatively unexpectedly, we answered the call. Unfortunately, the scheme has been burdened with meeting needs for which it was not designed and which mainstream services could address more appropriately. This has resulted in its trying, but not being fully able, to realise its wider welfare role.
Another area of major concern is the increase in the amount of rent supplements, which community welfare officers have to administer. The increase is due to a myriad of factors but largely due to the slowing down in building by local authorities in the 1980s and 1990s. We accept the conclusion of the interdepartmental committee Report on the Administration of Rent and Mortgage Interest Assistance of 1999 that rent assistance, where it is appropriate to meet housing needs, should be delivered by local authorities as part of and integrated into housing policy. Ideally, total responsibility for all aspects of housing should rest with the local authorities and therefore all rent supplements should be implemented by them, rather than making the cherry-picking proposals they made previously.
We also accept that social welfare allowance is not beyond requiring change. Our Blueprint for the Development of Community Welfare, which we have made available to the committee, suggests a number of changes to both mainstream social welfare and supplementary welfare. By doing so, we show we are open to change. We also address the question of asylum seekers and the necessity for them to enjoy equal access to social welfare allowance, which is not happening at present.
The community welfare service should be a specialist one, not confined to decisions of income maintenance and the delivery of cash payments but involved together with other relevant services in empowering people to get out of poverty. My board, the Mid-Western Health Board, has specialist community welfare officers dealing with homelessness and asylum seekers, and one who deals exclusively with disabilities in a certain geographical area. We have a community welfare officer dealing with elderly care on a pilot basis. Such community welfare officers can contact all local groups, GPs, clergy, etc., to try to reach those who do not know we exist or do not apply for our services. There are similar examples throughout the country.
This was the original role envisaged for the Community Welfare Service in the 1970s by Mr. Cluskey. It is a role we have never been able to fully realise because of the way in which the social welfare allowance system has been used over the years to compensate for the deficiencies in mainstream services. It is a role that community welfare officers wish to develop fully, have the ability to carry out and which our clients need. The community welfare officer job description refers to the necessity to relieve social distress and, where possible, prevent its recurrence. It is accepted that poverty is a multi-faceted problem that cannot be dealt with by income maintenance alone. It was originally envisaged that the community welfare officer would have a much wider role. The community welfare officer was seen as being involved with public health nurses and social workers in identifying the welfare needs of an area, co-operating and dealing with families and identifying gaps or unnecessary overlaps.
Community welfare officers were to provide more than an income maintenance service. It was also expected that they would provide a gateway or information referral services for other services. We are also seen as having what is now called an advocacy role. Community welfare officers fulfil this to some extent but are unable to fully realise it.
The wider welfare role is now more necessary than ever and we should concentrate on two main areas, namely, integration of services within the health boards or whatever structure replaces the boards and integration with other relevant services, including information, referral or advocacy roles.
The main advantages of the community welfare service are that it is based in the community, available everywhere and assesses need on an individual basis and not in a group-led or category-led fashion. Most reasonable sized towns have a community welfare officer clinic weekly. At last count, the community welfare officer service was operating in more than 1,000 centres throughout the country.
There is a growing awareness of the need to have community welfare officers involved in decision-making and in co-ordination in respect of: older people; people with disabilities; children, in terms of child care and children with disabilities; people with mental illness; carers; victims of domestic violence; people needing various family support services; drug abusers, including alcohol abusers; families of drugs users; the homeless; the Traveller community and asylum seekers.
Social services are provided by a number of agencies and this number is increasing all the time. The community welfare service is in touch with most families who have problems. Any of the mainstream services are provided at arm's length, or perhaps computer's length. While this may be financially efficient it is not always conducive to the promotion of welfare. The community welfare officer is in an ideal position to form the co-ordinating role in the delivery of services. The community welfare officers, as well as being an integral part of the health board services, should also be involved in co-ordinating and liaising with home-school liaison officers. My board has a project that involves liaising with community welfare officers and school liaison officers, the purpose of which is to determine whether financial reasons are responsible in cases where children are not attending school. Given the opportunity, we could expand this kind of interaction. The community welfare officers should also be involved in co-ordinating and liaising with education welfare officers, disability groups, those involved in older people's services, etc.
On information and advocacy, as society becomes more complex and the social welfare services respond to that complexity, the need for information and advisory services will increase. In particular, poor and vulnerable people find it hard to navigate the system and need more intensive help.
I hope members of the committee have received a flavour of where we have come from and where we wish to go. There is a tremendous feeling of frustration and uncertainty in terms of the community welfare officers and service because of the exclusion of the unions and practitioners from the various review processes to which I referred. Recently, the suggestion that we as a service would move to the Department of Social and Family Affairs appears to have gathered ground. This is a source of great concern to us. We feel the Department has no interest in the wider welfare role of the community welfare service. It is only interested in the income maintenance role and, indeed, administrative costs of the scheme. This militates against the development of the welfare role. The Department argues that since it pays the administrative costs of the service, it should have total control. We feel this would lead to a more prescriptive, rigid service and would not be in the best interests of the customers we serve. The buffer of the chief executive officers between the policy setting arm of the Department is a good control mechanism to ensure that it does not get too prescriptive. There is a case to be made to have the service fully within the remit of health and community care services. This would mean that the Department of Health and Children would set policy and administration would continue to be within the health boards, or what replaces them in the future. This would allow the service to be totally part of the community care service and would facilitate the wider welfare role which we envisage and which Mr. Cluskey envisaged for the service at its outset.
The health boards are effectively a form of local government and are in a better position to co-ordinate policies with local government and local development agencies than the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The overall strategic aims of the health service as enunciated in the health strategy - health gain, social gain and people-centred delivery of service - are clearly to the fore in the community welfare service and we look forward to an expansion of these in the future.
We greatly appreciate that a committee as important as this has taken time to listen to our concerns and we ask for its support in ensuring that we remain central to the delivery of health and welfare services locally, under the Department of Health and Children, in the best interests of all those that we have served and look forward to serving in the future.
