Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if it is correct that a directive has been given to the carer's allowance section whereby two teams have been set up, one to deal with all carer's allowance applications from August 2012 and the second to deal with all applications received prior to August 2012; is it correct that applications from August 2012 will be dealt with quicker than applications in the system pre August; if this is the case, if she will explain the rationale behind such a directive and the reason applicants who have been waiting the longest are not having their applications processed first; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50428/12]

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 first step in the elimination of the backlog is to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to deal with new work as it arrives. 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 on the backlog which is ring-fenced with a clear and targeted plan for its elimination. Additional resources have been added to the backlog clearance team and I can assure the Deputy that clearing the backlog is of primarily importance and is getting full attention. Implementation of the new focused plan commenced on Monday 3 September and is being closely monitored and managed to ensure it achieves its objectives. A noted increase in the number of claims processed was achieved in September and October, and this increase continues into November. However, it will take a number of months to clear the backlog.