Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

674. To ask the Minister for Health if his attention was drawn to processing times to have qualifications recognised and register with CORU for social workers who qualified in Northern Ireland that want to apply for vacant positions here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46171/21]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

675. To ask the Minister for Health the processing timeframes for recognition of qualifications and registering with CORU for social workers in each of the years 2018 to 2020 and to date in 2021, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46172/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 674 and 675 together.

CORU has provided data in tabular form on the processing times for the recognition and registration of social work qualifications.

These data include applications for the recognition of social work qualifications generally and applicants who qualified in Northern Ireland., CORU does not track the data on applicants based on geographical location and cannot provide a figure specifically for applicants who provide an address for correspondence in Northern Ireland.

Recognition data for 2021 is not yet available, however, the current registration average processing time for 2021 is provided below.

Table 1: Average Recognition Processing Time in Days for Social Worker Applications

Table 2: Average Registration Processing Time in Days for All Social Worker Applications

Measures to Improve Timelines

CORU has advised that until recently an applicant with an international qualification was required to wait until their recognition application was completed before they could apply for registration. CORU has introduced a new process whereby an applicant who has submitted their application for recognition can now begin the registration process at the same time, this means internationally qualified applicants can be placed on the register in a shorter timeframe. CORU advises that as this is a recent change, outcomes cannot yet be measured.

CORU has also scheduled additional board meetings for the Social Workers Registration Board for Quarter 4 in 2021 and into 2022 to support faster decision making.

In addition to the above measures, CORU has informed the Department that in October the Health and Social Care Professionals Council will consider a proposal to pilot an alternate mechanism for the recognition of qualifications, this pilot will include Social Work qualifications from Northern Ireland and is expected to significantly reduce timeframes.