The Department is committed to processing claims as expeditiously as possible having regard to the eligibility conditions which apply. At the end of December 2008 the numbers of claims being processed for the schemes mentioned were as follows:
Scheme
|
Claims being processed atend December 2008
|
State Pension (Contributory)
|
4,405
|
State Pension (Non Contributory)
|
1,415
|
State Pension (Transition)
|
1,632
|
One Parent Family Payment
|
4,593
|
Jobseeker’s Benefit
|
21,071
|
Jobseeker’s Allowance
|
24,529
|
Carer’s Allowance
|
3,569
|
Respite Care Grant
|
503
|
The processing of claims may involve, among other things, the need to establish the customer's social insurance record, verify medical conditions, establish a customer's identity or their place of habitual residence and assess means where appropriate.
Additional information or indeed information originally sought but not provided may also have to be requested from the customer. The figures for pension schemes include claims where a person's date of entitlement has not yet been reached.
The Department aims to process claims quickly and efficiently. In this regard there is a continued emphasis on providing staff with the necessary training and development to ensure they have the requisite knowledge and skills to carry out their work. Operational procedures, the organisation of work, and the allocation of staff resources continue to be reviewed and restructured to maximise the processing capability of the scheme areas.
An additional 31 staff were assigned to 15 local offices following a review of the number of staffing levels in local offices in May and June last year. Following a further review late last year, it was decided to put an extra 115 staff in place. 57 of these have already taken up work, while start dates have been agreed for a further 19 staff over the next two to three weeks. Work is on-going to complete the assignment of the remaining 39 staff as quickly as possible.
In order to maximise the number of people paid before Christmas, a temporary Central Decisions Unit was set up in Dublin City Centre for three weeks in December. Following on from the success of this initiative, four more such units are being set up in Dublin, Sligo, Finglas and Carrick-on-Shannon. Each unit will have 10 staff. In addition to this, a further 16 Social Welfare Inspectors are being assigned to various locations throughout the country to do means and other work associated with processing claims for jobseeker's payments.