Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will confirm that currently her Department are processing carer's allowance applications for November 2011, 11 months after the applications have been submitted; the action being taken to clear this backlog; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46912/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I acknowledge that the time taken to process carer’s allowance claims at present 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 was completed 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 streams. One concentrates on dealing with new claim intake and processes these without delay and the other is focused on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear and targeted plan for its elimination. Over the next number of months new carer’s allowance claims being received in the Department are being processed upon receipt. Claims which form part of the ring-fenced backlog will be dealt with as quickly as possible in order of date of receipt.

Implementation of the plan commenced on Monday 3 September and will be closely monitored and managed to ensure it achieves its objectives. A noted increase in the number of new claims processed was achieved in September, where claims processed substantially exceeded claim intake, and this increase continues into October. However, it will take a number of months before the backlog is reduced to an acceptable level. The allocation of available resources to this task continues to be monitored.