Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not propose to accept either of these amendments. By its nature and because of its quasi-judicial function the processing of appeals does take time and it reflects the fact that by definition the social welfare appeals process cannot be a quick one. The appeals system involves cases where there is a difference between the views taken by the Department and by the person making the claim for a particular allowance. Consequently, appeal cases inevitably involve contention to a greater or lesser degree. I think this has been acknowledged. We can discuss Deputy Naughten's point about the incomplete applications further. There is an appeals process which is often endlessly repetitive as people put in additional evidence and in some cases never put in adequate evidence in the beginning. That inevitably delays the process.

If the appeal is to get the consideration it merits, further investigation of the grounds advanced in the initial appeal must be carried out in many cases, whether this involves a further medical assessment or an investigation by an investigating officer of the Department. I understand the sentiments of the Deputies who put forward the amendment. Putting a statutory time limit on the process of an appeal in these circumstances may well mean that in many cases an appeal would not get the consideration it deserves because in our system, as has been said, we allow multiples of additional information to go into the system at different times. That is in a certain sense a positive feature of the system but in another sense it is an enormous delay factor. Deputies with long experience of the appeals system know exactly what I am talking about.

In the event that statutory deadlines were going to be imposed, as both Deputies envisage in their amendment, it is very likely that the system would become much less flexible in accepting additional documents and evidence from the appellant at various stages of the appeal process in order to ensure that the deadlines being proposed in these amendments are met. That would be to the detriment of the person applying. The Deputies have to be careful about what they wish for in these amendments.

Deputy O'Dea's amendment proposes that where appeals are not processed within the specified deadline a decision upholding the appeal would be deemed to have been made. This would appear to suggest that even where the underlying conditionality is not satisfied an appeal would therefore be allowed. This would lead to a situation where it would be in an appellant's interest to delay the appeal by constantly submitting new information beyond the statutory deadline in order to achieve the result.

It is worth reminding Deputies that up to 2009 the average number of appeals received was 15,000 per annum. This was at a time when resources were much more flúirseach and flaithiúileach than they are now. In 2012 the social welfare appeals office received 35,484 appeals. That represents an increase of 136%. Deputy O'Dea asked a very pertinent question about the staffing levels in the Limerick office. I do not have the information directly to hand now but I will certainly get it for him. First, however, I want to reflect on what the Deputy's party in government did at that stage. It did it for a good reason. Until then when somebody went on medical or illness benefit the illness benefit could last indefinitely. There was no actual limit. In that year, partly as a response to the financial crisis, a new two year limit was put on illness benefit. There is a lot to be said for that but the consequence was that from 2011 a huge volume of the people who had been on illness benefit were coming of the benefit and in many cases sought to go on another payment. It would be appropriate to acknowledge, in looking at the workload of the office, that this has been a major contributory factor.

I am happy to say we have come through the worst of it even though the volume of appeals has gone up by 136% at a time when the Department has lost experienced staff due to retirements. Some of those staff members were retained for a period but also at a time when, as the Deputy knows, I have significantly increased the numbers of officials appointed to the appeals office. They have been trained up and it takes some time for them to be trained. Significant resources and efforts have been put into reducing backlogs and improving appeal process times for appellants. That includes the assignment of 15 additional appeals officers which Deputy Ó Snodaigh has welcomed very strongly and implementing a new operating model within the appeals office. Much of this is down to comments and advice from Deputies. On foot of these measures, processing times for appeals have shown sustained improvement since the end of 2011 when there was an enormous increase because of the change in the period of illness benefit duration. The average waiting time for an oral hearing in 2011 was 52.5 weeks as compared to the current situation in which it is 36.5 weeks. In fairness to the staff who work in the offices and the system, that is a very significant improvement. It is an improvement of four months while processing time for summary decisions has increased slightly, by 2.7 weeks This arises because the new model for processing appeals has rebalanced processing times as between oral hearings and summary decisions. I think Deputy Naughten recommended this rebalancing. I have had discussions with Deputies before in which I have emphasised that for summary decisions in many cases the quality of the information supplied to support the application needs to be improved. I will bear in mind what Deputy Naughten said about the design of the form. The chief medical officers work closely with the college of GPs and other medical institutions to improve the understanding by medical doctors of what is required for a social welfare application and appeal, where they support it.

Under the previous model for processing appeals, each appeals officer examined his or her caseload to decide which cases would be dealt with on a summary basis and which required an oral hearing. When an appeal required an oral hearing, that appeal then entered a new queue and would most likely have been assigned to a different appeals officer. That officer would then have to familiarise himself or herself with the case, leading to inefficiencies in service. There is no reason why a case which may be decided summarily should be progressed more speedily at the expense of a case which requires an oral hearing. Accordingly, under the new model introduced from 2011, where an appeals officer decides that an appeal requires an oral hearing, the officer then deals with that case.

This system has led to a much more efficient and effective service. The objective is that there would be no more than six to nine weeks between the times taken to process a case decided summarily and a case which requires an oral hearing. With the IT improvements which I spoke about earlier, I believe this is achievable.

We have reduced the backlog which we inherited. All the indications are that the improvements in processing times will be sustained right throughout 2013. One of the issues identified by the chief appeals officer is the length of time taken by the Department to respond to requests from the social welfare appeals office for submissions by the deciding officer dealing with a case. This is particularly the case for those schemes where the qualifying criteria are medically based. There has been a major process of redesigning and modernising the system. The most significant backlogs will be almost fully clear by the end of this month. The social welfare appeals office expects to finalise 6,000 more cases in 2013 than in 2012. The number of cases finalised so far this year indicates the office is well on track to achieve this target.

Deputy O’Dea requested additional staff be made available. We are rolling out the new Intreo offices. Having been in the Limerick office on several occasions, I am conscious of the fact a high proportion of the population in Limerick is dependent on one or other form of social welfare and this is a priority. We are also dependent on the Office of Public Works for office improvements.

One notable development in the appeals system is the amount of information that can be made available to Members. I have gone out of my way with the staff of the Department to provide information sessions to Members, particularly for new Deputies and their staff, on the system. It is a complex system. Entitlements are based on law, which is one of the strengths of the Department as it protects against arbitrary decision-making. Deciding officers have certain powers under the law. The suggestion that the Department’s officers are being encouraged to act unfairly or not to act within the law is not correct and unfair to many of the Department’s staff who go out of their way to assist people.

There were 51,000 invalidity pensions in payment at the end of April. The expenditure on these pensions in 2012 was €603 million. Since the illness benefit was reduced to two years, there has been a high demand for people to go on to another payment. Each week 220 new invalidity claims are received and are decided on within a few days of receipt of the relevant documentation. Almost 60% of the current claims are awaiting a decision for two months or less. The new IT and business processes that have been installed are processing claims which have increased, along with dealing with inheritance backlogs. The backlog of 7,300 claims which had built up was effectively cleared by the end of 2012. The target now is to process all new claims promptly upon receipt.

I must point out that the information supplied by the applicant in such claims needs to be as complete as possible. My Department spends €47 million a year on Citizens Information centres and MABS, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, precisely to help people to obtain information on their entitlements. In addition, since I became Minister, I have established an advocacy service to assist people with disabilities, for example, including intellectual disabilities, to receive their full social welfare entitlements. This has all taken place against a background of limited resources.

The Department has also taken over managing the domiciliary care allowance from the Department of Health and revamped it, giving significant additional time and information to parents involved in it. We have also taken over a range of schemes from the Health Service Executive, all of which required vast amounts of time. We have also increased the numbers in receipt of these allowances which has resulted in a huge increase in the amounts expended on all of the schemes.

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