Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 39: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the steps she is taking to address the particular problems of backlogs in the processing of jobseeker payments in social welfare branch offices; and the number of extra personnel that have been assigned to branch offices since 1 January 2009. [9265/09]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Question 43: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she is satisfied that there is sufficient flexibility in the contract of social welfare branch offices to provide an adequate response to the large backlog of jobseeker claims. [9266/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 39 and 43 together.

Branch offices are operated by private individuals on a contract basis and all staff employed in branch offices are recruited directly by the branch managers. Under the terms of their contract, branch managers are required to review their staffing levels to ensure that they allow for the efficient performance of the work of the office.

The additional number of people applying for jobseeker payments has placed increased pressure on all of the Department's local and branch offices. All claims taken in branch offices are forwarded to the parent local office for decision by a deciding officer.

Where the parent local office is under particular pressure arising from the extra workload from the increase in its live register, this can contribute to the delays in processing branch office claims. Staff in social welfare local and branch offices are working extremely hard to process claims as quickly as possible.

I appreciate that people need to get access to financial and other supports as quickly as possible. The situation regarding applications for jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance in both local and branch offices is being monitored on an on-going basis by the Department to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to ensure claims are processed as speedily as possible.

As part of the allocation of additional staff to local offices, 107 staff have been allocated to offices with responsibility for branch offices to assist in processing claims taken in these offices as quickly as possible. The staff levels in these offices are being kept under review.

Statistics are not maintained on the number of staff employed by branch managers. It should be noted, however, that a branch manager's annual performance assessment, which is conducted by the management from the parent local office, involves an evaluation of the staffing levels to ensure that service requirements are being met.