Michael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the delay by her Department in processing reviews of family income supplement payments and the impact this is having on low income families that are already stretched to the last (details supplied); her plan to address this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43568/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.

The average waiting time for new family income supplement (FIS) claims at the end of August is 18 weeks and for renewal claims is 16 weeks. At the end of August, there were 7,137 new FIS applications and 7,511renewal applications awaiting approval. The volume of FIS claims on hands and the delays in processing are a consequence of continued strong claim intake. An integral part of the FIS scheme is that once the level of payment is determined, it continues to be payable at that rate for a period of 52 weeks, provided that the person remains in full time employment.

Claimants must apply to have their payment renewed if they wish to receive payment for a further 52 weeks. At present, application forms for renewal of the payment of FIS for a further 52 weeks are issued one month in advance of the expiry of the current payment and are processed in order of the date of expiry of the current payment and not by the date of receipt of a completed renewal form. This is designed to facilitate the collection of the most up-to-date customer information to ensure the fairest calculation of entitlement for the next 52 week payment period of FIS.

An in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project has recently commenced for the FIS scheme. This project will focus on optimising output and customer service and the reduction of backlogs. Part of the project will be detailed examination of workloads and a full assessment of existing capacity within the area and what capacity is needed in order to process the volumes of claims, both new and renewal, being received.

Following the assessment phase of this BPI project, a plan will be devised and implemented which will allow the normal weekly new claim intake to be processed without delay and the backlog to be ring-fenced and eliminated over a specified target period. It is expected that the assessment phase of the project will be completed very shortly.