Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 11: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of additional staff requested for social welfare offices since 1 January 2009; the number received; the number fully deployed; and the source of these extra staff. [23279/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Since May 2008, some 300 extra staff have been assigned to local offices, new Central Support Units and the Departments Inspectorate. Of these 150 have been assigned since January 2009 as follows: · 16 Social Welfare Inspectors were assigned in March 2009 to various locations around the country to undertake means testing and other work associated with processing claims for the jobseekers allowance. · 49 posts have also been assigned to date for Local Office Central Support Units in 5 locations. · And some 90 temporary staff have been appointed to Local Offices around the country pending the assignment of permanent staff.

The new inspectors and staff for the support units were sourced by the redeployment or lateral transfer of serving Civil Servants either within the Department or from other Government Departments.

Work is in progress to source a further 150 posts, including 24 additional social welfare inspectors, from within the civil service.

In providing extra staffing, both directly to the local offices and to the new support units, the focus has been on supporting local offices that are under the most pressure in terms of claim loads and processing times.

I appreciate that waiting times are still too long in some areas and I assure the House that we are doing our best to reduce them.

In addition to providing extra staff, we have also been examining all aspects of the work associated with the processing of claims and streamlining our procedures wherever possible without, of course, compromising scheme controls.

Examples of process improvement initiatives that have been introduced include: · The introduction of an appointment system in some offices for customers making a jobseekers claim; · A simplified process for people who had a claim in the previous 2 years; and · A more streamlined procedure for claimants moving to jobseekers allowance when their jobseekers benefit expires.

In addition, application forms for the jobseeker schemes are now available on the Department's website. This means that anyone who wants to make a claim can print the form at home and bring it to the local office completed. This helps reduce queuing times.

I assure the Deputies that my Department is working hard to ensure that the remaining extra posts required are filled as soon possible.