John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 35: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties being placed on parents who are in receipt of single parent allowance from their local post offices and only have four days to collect payments; and his plans to extend the collection period. [4684/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The one-parent family payment, OPFP, is the income support scheme for separated, unmarried and widowed persons and also for prisoners' spouses who are bringing up a child or children without the support of a partner. At the end of December 2005, the total number of one parent family recipients being paid by my Department was 83,066. Included in this figure are payments to 906 widowed persons.

The current scheme was introduced in 1997 when it replaced a number of schemes for different categories of lone parent. These schemes included lone parents allowance and deserted wife's benefit. Under the current scheme lone parents are encouraged to maximise their income from different sources and the means test for this scheme makes provision for the exemption of significant levels of earnings and maintenance payments.

Lone parents may earn up to €146.50 per week from employment without affecting their payment. Above that level, half of any earnings are assessed, up to a maximum of €293 per week. The maximum limit of €293 is being increased to €375 per week with effect from June 2006 as a result of changes introduced in the last budget. Lone parents may also be eligible to avail of the range of employment support services operated by the Department.

Following a review of the arrangements for administering the scheme, it was decided that services should in future be provided through my Department's local offices. The primary aim of providing services at local level is to improve customer service by reducing claim processing times through closer linkage with the local investigative officer network. Furthermore, by accessing services at local level lone parents come into direct contact with my Department's employment support services. These services provide support and encouragement to lone parents to access educational courses through schemes such as the back to education scheme or to take up work with the support of the back to work allowance scheme.

My Department currently processes new applications for one-parent family payment, OPFP, at 36 social welfare local offices. Plans are in place to move claims already in payment, which are currently administered in Sligo, to social welfare local offices during 2006 and for this move to be finalised early in 2007. The benefits of having these claims administered at local level are already evident as the average processing time for claim applications has dropped from 16 weeks to an average of seven weeks since the change.

Some 17,000 claims for one-parent family payment are received each year — equivalent to 330 per week on average. There are currently 3,608 one-parent family payment applications awaiting final decision. In addition to processing of new claims, there is significant ongoing interaction with existing clients. Generally, recipients of one-parent family payment are in a relatively young age bracket and they are likely to move in and out of employment, education or training on a regular basis or to have other changes in their family or household circumstances during the course of their entitlement to payment. Approximately 70,000 existing cases — an average of 1,300 per week — are reviewed for these reasons each year.

As part of the preparations for moving the administration of the OPFP scheme to local level some 44,000 OPFP customers who up to this time were paid by means of an order book will, from the middle of this month, collect their payment in post offices by using their social services card. As part of the Department's control processes, the payment should be collected by close of business on the Tuesday following the Thursday payday. If the money is not collected by then, contact should be made with the Department.

In circumstances where the customer has been unable to collect the payment, for instance due to illness, work commitments, holidays etc., arrangements are made to have the payment reissued as soon as possible and the payment is not forfeited. This payment method has been in operation for certain one parent families for some years. Currently, nearly 6,000 one-parent family payment customers receive their payment weekly in the post offices using this payment method and they are generally satisfied with the arrangement.

Although existing customers on EIT payments are satisfied with the system I have asked my officials to review the situation regarding the period of these payments with a view to extending it if possible. Any customer having difficulty with collecting the payment every week can contact the one-parent family payment section in Sligo who provide advice on a range of other payment options.