Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 38: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she has reviewed or plans to review customer service standards; if she has concerns about the capacity of her Department to adequately deal with the extent of communication being generated; if she has sought additional resources to meet this need; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21438/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department's customer service standards are set out in its Customer Charter. Through regular consultation with customers and stakeholders, the commitments in the charter are measured to determine the extent to which these standards are achieved and these achievements are published every year in the Department's Annual Report. The Department's Customer Action Plan 2009-2011 builds on the commitments in the Customer Charter and sets out a range of aims and actions to achieve them during the lifetime of the plan.

A new Customer Charter and Customer Action Plan 2012-2014 will be drafted this year which will incorporate the changed role of the Department following recent Government decisions in relation to the Department's responsibilities and functions. As part of this process a new set of customer service standards will be established. Some 1.4m people each week receive a social welfare payment and when qualified adults and children are included, a total of over 2.1m people benefit from weekly payments. Some 600,000 families receive child benefit payments in respect of over 1.1m children each month.

The day-to-day activities of the Department include: · some 50 separate schemes and services; · over 2m applications cleared annually; · over 6.5m telephone calls to the Department annually; · over 85.3m payments annually; · processing applications for Personal Public Service Numbers for customers from some 140 countries.

As part of its ongoing modernisation agenda, the Department delivers services to customers through a range of contact channels - telephone, SMS text messaging, websites, online services and walk-in services. This gives customers more choice in how they access services, and also provides a more integrated service. The Department has been proactive in implementing new processes and procedures to improve service delivery, for example, in its local office process modernisation programme.

Any organisation experiencing peaks in demand for its service, as the Department has in recent years, may at times also experience periods where the service it provides may not always meet customer expectations. Additional staff have been appointed to the Department in recent times to help meet this demand, particularly in respect of Jobseekers payments. However, it should be noted that the Department must also achieve the employment control framework (ECF) targets, as agreed under the Public Service Agreement 2010 -2014, through compliance with the moratorium on recruitment. I am satisfied that my Department has the resources to meet the current demand for its services and will continue to deliver quality customer services to the public.