Mr. Noel Hand:

The wisdom of taking CWOs away from the front line and putting them on the phone has been mentioned. Having CWOs available on the phone to deal with people right across the country is an improvement to the service, in my opinion. It goes back to my point about improving access points and having a range of these for customers so that a person does not have to leave their home to speak to a CWO. They can phone our national number and actually get to speak to a CWO if they need to. We have been particularly focused in putting experienced CWOs on that line so that they can provide a very valuable service to people. The feedback on the customer experience that we have been getting from support agencies has been very positive for people who have dealt with CWOs on that line. In some instances, CWOs have been available to make payments on the spot to people who were presenting with a particular need via phone . They can also facilitate an onward engagement at a local level and get somebody to go out and physically meet the person. I would say it is a very valuable improvement to our service.

The hub is designed to speed up the time it takes to get the claim directly in front of a CWO for decision. We want to have that done in a number of days so that when the person makes the application that it has got to the point where it is ready for decision by a CWO. As soon as that process of making the claim ready is completed and all of the information is collated and ready, it is then passed digitally on to the CWO. The more information and supporting documentation that a person can provide at claim entry point the better. That will speed up the time taken to get that claim in front of the CWO. The hub system is improving those times and claims now can be with a CWO in a number of days. That is an improvement. It would be inaccurate to say that it is taking up to 12 weeks for a claim to get past the hub and out to the CWO. That is not the case. The hub is designed to get the claim in, get it ready, get it out to the local CWO for decision as quickly as possible. The hubs are staffed by staff at clerical officer, executive officer and higher executive officer level. They all have the focus of getting the claim ready for it to be transmitted back to the local CWO for decision within the shortest possible time. That is what we have been working towards. The intention is to expand our hub network and to establish three new ones. We will have hubs in Cork, Galway and Sligo. They will support the locally based CWOs to get the claims out to them as quickly as possible. This enables us to continue with local engagement with our customers.

I am not entirely sure what went on in the case of the person with the funeral expense who was mentioned earlier but I will certainly look into the matter. If that claim came through the hub it would have gone back out to the local CWO. Perhaps it was dealt with differently but I would say that it is an unusual case. For funeral expenses, that is something that we are particularly focused on, given the circumstances of the case, to ensure that the family is supported as quickly as possible. Sometimes with funerals it can take time for the claim to be brought to a stage where it can be decided because the bills from the undertakers and other expenses that have been incurred have not come in. Of the claims that we have awaiting decision, the longer ones are probably in that category, the more complex cases that we deal with. The intention of the hub is to get the claim into the system as quickly as possible, get it ready for decision and get it back to the local CWO as quickly as possible. I am talking about days really if all of the information has been provided. There should be an improvement seen in our processing times and an improvement in the time it takes to get the case before a CWO. As my colleague, Mr. Hession said, we do not want CWO taking up their valuable time with clerical, administrative tasks, writing to people looking for bills and receipts and collating that information.

We want to remove that so the claim is given to them and all they have to do is decide the claim and make the payment.