Hanafin seeks transfer of 300 staff to process welfare claims

THE TRANSFER of some 300 staff from the Department of Finance to help with the increasing number of social welfare claims has been requested by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin.

Some 246 staff have already been transferred from other Government departments to local social welfare offices and inspectorates and “have helped the situation”, Ms Hanafin said yesterday.

“We have requested the extra staff for over the next year or so to reduce the waiting times for people.”

The number of claims processed in local offices in the first three months of 2009 was up 80 per cent on the same period last year from 86,000 to 155,000.

In 2008, the number of claims processed increased by almost one-third.

Staff were “working flat out to meet the demands being made of them at this busy time”, Ms Hanafin said.

The Live Register of unemployment benefit claimants has doubled over the past 12 months to 388,600 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

In April the Live Register rose by 15,800 as the rate of unemployment hit 11.4 per cent, up from 11 per cent in March.

The Minister was speaking at the launch of a customer charter and action plan for her department as well as its revamped website.

The two priorities of the plan were responding to the increased numbers of job-seekers and increasing the use of technology.

Ms Hanafin acknowledged that the increase in Live Register numbers was causing delays in some areas in processing claims for job-seeker’s benefit.

Three processing units which are devoted to deciding on the backlog of claims for job-seeker’s benefit and allowance are planned for the coming months. This is in addition to four units recently established.

The department has also undertaken to increase its use of technology to improve productivity.

Visits to the department’s website have almost doubled in the last few years, with almost 250,000 people visiting it every month.

An SMS service is among the new tools adapted since the start of the year. It allows the public to request social welfare forms by mobile text message. Forms have also recently been put on the website for downloading.