Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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Question 120: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her Department's offices in County Kerry will be retained; if current staffing levels will be maintained; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13118/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I am very conscious of the need to provide efficient and effective customer facing services at a local level for clients of the Department in Kerry and every other part of the country and in this regard the location of the Department's offices are kept under constant review to ensure Departmental services are easily accessible to all clients.

In order to offer a more streamlined, efficient and integrated service to clients, the Department is undergoing a process of intensive planning and organisational change in establishing the new National Employment and Entitlements Service (NEES). The establishment of the NEES brings together the Community Welfare Service (CWS), the Employment Services and Community Employment Programmes of FÁS, the Rural Social Scheme and Community Services Programme from the former Department of Community, Equality and the Gaeltacht and the Redundancy and Insolvency Schemes from the former Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation. It is the intention that the NEES will integrate all employment and benefit support services in a single delivery unit. This new service will provide a coherent integrated and more personalised service to clients and will help minimise the duplication that characterised services which were provided separately in the past.

The staffing needs for all areas within the Department are continuously reviewed, having regard to workloads, management priorities and the competing demands arising, to ensure that the best use is made of all available resources with a view to providing an efficient service to those who rely on the schemes operated by the Department. As the Deputy will be aware there is currently a moratorium on recruitment across the civil and public service. I can assure the Deputy that the Department will continue to source available staff to fill critical vacancies, including those arising from retirements, by way of redeployment, or transfer from within the Department and other Government Departments, taking account of the Employment Control Framework (ECF) target, as determined by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.