Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will expedite payment for carer's allowance which has been deemed medically eligible since last September but has not been finalised yet; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1728/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I confirm that the department received an application for carer’s allowance from the person in question on 22 September 2011. The person concerned was refused carers allowance on the grounds that the care recipient is not so disabled as to require full time care and attention as prescribed in regulations. She was notified of this decision and the reason for it.

The person in question requested a review of this decision and submitted additional medical evidence in support of the application on 14 June and on 25 July 2012. This supplementary information was forwarded to the Department’s medical assessor for consideration. Upon review, the caree was deemed eligible on medical grounds. The application is with a deciding officer for a decision. Once processed, the person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome.

Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the length of time it takes for awarded appeals for allowances such as carer's, disability and invalidity pension to go into payment; her views on whether this is an acceptable timeframe; if she will review same to allow for a quicker process; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1731/13]

Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the length of time it takes to process allowances such as disability, carer's and invalidity pension from the date on which they have been medically approved to when they go into payment; her views on whether this is an acceptable timeframe; if she will consider reviewing same to allow for a quicker process; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1732/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 531 and 532 together.

It is not possible to provide accurate statistics in respect of the specific parameters of your question as the time lags in these two circumstances are not separately recorded.

However, I can say that in respect of all three schemes the putting into payment of successful appeals is prioritised as far as possible. Both carer’s allowance and invalidity pension scheme areas report that no significant delays are occurring in this work at present and that the matter is kept under close review. In the disability allowance scheme area, the time taken to put successful appeals into payment has increased recently. Measures are being taken to ensure that this is addresses.

Regarding your question concerning the time lapse between an opinion being received from a medical assessor regarding the medical eligibility of a claim and a claim being approved, this is directly related to claim processing times generally within the scheme areas.

The Department is undergoing a major service delivery modernisation programme to improve the way it delivers it service to customers and to help it to deal with the significant increase in the number of applications for schemes being received in recent years. The years 2011 and 2012 saw the roll-out of new service delivery systems in the long-term illness schemes i.e. invalidity pension (IP), carer’s allowance (CA) and disability allowance (DA). Following the deployment of the new system, an in-depth business process improvement (BPI) project was initiated in each of the schemes, aimed at providing capacity to deal with weekly intake of applications, eliminate backlogs and ensure that the optimum efficiencies were realised from the new system.

The BPI programme commenced in invalidity pension (IP) section in May 2012. At that time, there were approx. 7,300 new IP claims awaiting a decision. As of now, all new IP claims are dealt with upon receipt, all backlogged claims are actions and the number of claims awaiting further information to allowed a decision be made has reduced very significantly to approx. 3,450.

While the time taken at present to process some carer’s allowance claims is not satisfactory, good inroads have been made over the last number of months by my Department to clear the current backlog and a plan is in place to process the remaining backlogged claims by the end of Q1 2013. I am happy that the actions they are taking will achieve this.

Since September 2012, a system has been put in place in carer’s allowance (CA) to deal promptly with new applications being received and to eliminate the backlog of applications awaiting decision. At present, there are approx. 8,380 new CA applications awaiting decision; this compares to approx. 11,600 applications which were awaiting decision in mid-June 2012. It is expected that the remainder of backlogged CA claims will be actioned by the end of March 2013.

The service delivery modernisation project was fully deployed for disability allowance (DA) in mid-November 2012. A business process improvement project is underway there at present with a view to putting together a plan, similar to those successfully implemented for IP and CA, for the prompt processing of weekly intake and the elimination of the current backlog. At present there are approximately 7,900 new DA applications awaiting decision. While the plan has not yet been finalised and rolled-out, it is anticipated that the backlog of DA applications will be eliminated by the end of Quarter 2 2013.