My Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers and is taking all available steps to ensure appropriate resources are in place to deliver its services. Since May 2008, some 990 staff have been assigned across the Department to fill critical vacancies and additional posts allocated to deal with the increased volume of claims. Taking into account the numbers of staff who have left the Department and the vacancies that exist currently, a net total of 226 additional staff have been assigned to the Department. These were sourced mainly through transfer and redeployment from other Government Departments. In addition, the Department has recruited new medical assessors and appointed additional staff to the social welfare appeals office. The Department also makes judicious use of overtime and employs temporary staff as appropriate to address particular service issues as they arise.
In relation to processing times, these vary across schemes depending on the differing qualification criteria. In order to improve services in this area and to enhance customer service in general, the Department has embarked on a major programme of process redesign and modernisation, including the development and roll-out of new computer systems.
