Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on whether it is fair and reasonable for carer's allowance applicants to wait over 12 months to have their claims processed; her views on whether it is fair and reasonable for applicants who have given up their job to care for someone on a full time basis to have to wait over 12 months for payment; her plans to address same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38744/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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There is currently a significant backlog of claims awaiting decision in carer’s allowance. The Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers. I acknowledge that the time taken to process carer's allowance claims, currently an average of 28 weeks, is not satisfactory, but I am satisfied that the Department is taking appropriate action to resolve the situation.

Carer's allowance section has recently completed a major service delivery modernisation project to improve the efficiency with which it processes applications from clients for carer's allowance. The project involved the development of IT functionality and associated business process re-organisation. Full deployment of the new system for Carer’s Allowance was completed in June 2012.

Following the completion of the modernisation project, an in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project commenced for the carer’s allowance scheme. This project focused on optimising output and customer service and the reduction of backlogs. The outcome of the review is the division of work into two steams. One concentrates on dealing with new claim intake and processed these without delay and the other on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear targeted plan for its elimination. Implementation of the plan commenced on Monday 3 September and will be closely monitored and managed to ensure it achieves its outcome. However, it will take a number of months before the backlog is reduced to an acceptable level. The allocation of available resourced to this task continues to be monitored.