I am an assistant general secretary with IMPACT and making a submission on its behalf and that of my colleagues in SIPTU, the two unions which represent community welfare officers and superintendent community welfare officers. Mr. Ó Raghallaigh has acknowledged that a number of community welfare officers and superintendent community welfare officers with us today can answer any questions the committee wishes to table with regard to the submission and our views.
I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to make this submission. A written submission has already been made to the committee. There is a slight change in paragraph 3 on page 3. We state the Department of Social and Family Affairs was party to the drawing up of the core functions of the health service report. I understand that it was not. That is the only change to be made to the written submission.
This opportunity is particularly important to our two unions and the people we represent as it is the first time we have been asked to express a formal view on the proposal to transfer the community welfare service from the health sector to the remit of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Those represented by the two unions believe this proposal could have profound adverse effects on the service and undermine the quality and range of services community welfare officers provide for some of the most vulnerable people in communities across Ireland. However, there has been no public debate on the issue. The report of the interdepartmental review group, Core Functions of the Health Service, which recommended the transfer was drawn up without a study of the work done by community welfare officers and significant consultation with those who manage, deliver and use community welfare services. Had they been properly consulted on the potential impact of the proposal, I suspect it would not have been brought forward, at least not in its present guise.
The committee will note from the written submission that we believe this potentially disastrous recommendation was made on the basis of a profound misunderstanding. It is difficult to believe it was a deliberate misrepresentation of the role of community welfare officers and superintendent community welfare officers. We refute the report's description of the role as "more welfare supports than personal social services". This totally disregards the key information advocacy roles community welfare officers perform, as well as referral links they provide with statutory health and personal social services. As a committee of elected representatives, members are familiar with these functions to some degree. As I am not a community welfare officer, if the committee seeks an insight into these roles, my colleagues will answer such questions.
There is a fundamental flaw in the proposal because unless the intention is to radically change the role of the community welfare officer, it will make the Department of Social and Family Affairs responsible for what are essentially health service functions. This will seriously undermine the range of quality community welfare services because it is unlikely the Department will continue to devote resources to health functions for which it is not ultimately responsible. There are tensions over what community welfare service functions the Department of Social and Family Affairs should fund, but this is a straw in the wind. The approach of the Department has always been to distinguish between the cost of delivering various supplementary welfare allowance payments such as supplements, exceptional needs payments and the back to school allowance and the cost of other health and welfare functions. This is an understandable approach from the counting perspective, as it seeks to attribute costs accurately and identify the agencies to which they should be allocated. The problem with this approach is that other agencies have no particular incentive to countenance or identify any welfare or health functions relating to payment functions. For obvious reasons, they do not wish to be pressurised into bearing the burden of these costs.
SIPTU and IMPACT are, therefore, concerned that the poor understanding of the totality of the CWO function will inevitably diminish over time following the proposed transfer. The Department of Social and Family Affairs cannot be realistically expected to develop an interest in identifying or meeting health or personal social service needs in the way community welfare officers do at present. These are not the Department's responsibility and it would be highly unlikely to continue to devote resources to functions for which it has no responsibility.
As stated in the written submission, the recent decision to withdraw crèche payments on the grounds that they were not a legitimate function of the Department is a stark example of the potential fallout of transferring the CWO function out of the area of health. We fear that, over time, the Department of Social and Family Affairs would instinctively — and in some way understandably — seek to curtail the vital CWO functions on which so many vulnerable people depend.
There is also a threat to the primary care strategy. Both IMPACT and SIPTU have strongly supported the primary care strategy and we are pleased that the proposed new social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, makes concrete commitments regarding implementation. The community welfare service is a key component of the strategy, which proposes an integrated approach involving interdisciplinary teams of health professionals providing treatment and preventative care in the community.
Other health professionals and primary health care teams have acknowledged the need to involve community welfare officers and have expressed concern regarding the proposal to transfer the community welfare service out of the health sector. There are fears that the local responsiveness of the service and the safety nets of supplementary welfare allowances may be lost. Vulnerable groups, including addicts, people with mental health issues and disabilities, single parents, victims of abuse, the elderly and those with chronic social, behavioural and psychological issues will find it more difficult to access health services if the transfer proceeds.
Health professionals recognise that members of the primary community in community care, PCCC teams, community welfare officers bridge the gap between health and income maintenance. They are an essential link in joined-up, person-centred service delivery. The links between community welfare officers and the voluntary sector are also essential for effective service delivery of both health and income maintenance. In short, the proposal to transfer the service is likely to undermine a key element of the primary care strategy.
We also believe that there is a significant threat to discretionary payments. The ability of CWOs to make discretionary payments will inevitably be undermined with the passage of time. If a transfer takes place, discretion is vital to the flexible and speedy reaction that characterises the community welfare service. The Core Functions of the Health Service report makes clear the intention of restricting community welfare officers' discretion after transfer. It explicitly identifies "a more uniform approach to benefits" and combining payments and supplements as objectives behind the recommendation to move the community welfare service. This justifies the fear that, if implemented, the decision would fatally undermine community welfare officers' discretion to respond to individual needs to relieve extreme hardship in extraordinary cases. The unspoken agenda is to limit or abolish the discretionary payments that make up a tiny part of the overall social welfare budget.
Even if this were not the intent, it is difficult to see how the discretionary elements of payment could survive within the culture, structure, operation and practices of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. This is not a criticism of the Department but rather a recognition of the fundamental difference in approach between community welfare officers, in granting social welfare allowances, and the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Within the social welfare allowances scheme, community welfare officers can make immediate payments to meet identified needs and, where required, can use discretion. Community welfare officers will generally conduct the appropriate means tests, visit clients in their homes and assess entitlement within a matter of days. Immediate payments can be made in urgent cases.
There is no separation of function because a community welfare officer will conduct an interview, investigate the case, apply the means test, decide, in consultation with superintendent community welfare officer, on eligibility and, subsequently, sanction and issue payment. The ability to deal with the case in this manner is a major strength of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. My colleagues can elaborate on that, if necessary.
On the other hand, the Department of Social and Family Affairs administers entitlement-based payments to thousands of people. This is necessarily a slower and more rigid procedure. A single application is processed by a number of different people, including clerical officers, investigating officers and deciding officers. The separation of the application into its component parts makes it extremely difficult to prioritise and respond quickly to urgent need. The ability to respond rapidly to urgent individual circumstances and needs are lost because claims generally must be returned to be processed. There is more detail in our written submission, on which my colleagues will elaborate, if required.
We believe the proposal to transfer the community welfare service to the Department of Social and Family Affairs is based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the role, requirements, purpose, operation and function of the service. It would inevitably result in a separation of health and personal social services over time. This would damage clients, as well as contradict the first recommendation made in the interdepartmental group's report. A transfer would inevitably make services more remote from the community through which community welfare officers operate and over time adversely affect vulnerable clients by substantially lengthening response times and undermining the discretionary nature of the service. It would also undermine a key element of the primary care strategy.
IMPACT, SIPTU and the front line professionals we represent are deeply opposed to the proposed transfer of the community welfare service and seek the support of the committee in preventing such a move. At the very least, we call for a proper study of the service and full consultation about the likely effects of the transfer, including with those who manage, deliver and use the service, namely, voluntary health bodies, health professionals, elected representatives and others. This must happen before there are any moves towards a transfer. Such a study would demonstrate the folly of this proposal.