The €8m bill to kit out social housing (and you don’t need to provide a receipt)
No, it’s not TDs this time – it’s the State-funded unvouched scheme at the other extreme of the social spectrum
TAXPAYERS forked out almost €8m last year to kit out the homes of people on social welfare with furniture and kitchen appliances.
Startling figures from the Department of Social Protection reveal that 4,075 people received an average grant of just over €1,900 each under the scheme last year.
The funds were granted under the Exceptional Needs Payment scheme, a ‘once-off’ grant to help people purchase essential items or pay energy bills or medical expenses.
But despite the fact that the cost of this scheme has been slashed in half in recent years, figures released to the Irish Mail on Sunday show that fewer people in 2014 received larger payments on average, when compared to 2013.
The figures, released following a freedom of information request, show that €7.7m was spent on ‘accommodation kit’ grants last year, including more than €2m in Dublin and over €1.1m in Cork.
The accommodation kit grant can be used to pay for things like furniture, beds, floor covering and household appliances such as cookers or fridges.
Critics of the scheme have called for extra safeguards after it emerged that claimants are not required to produce receipts to prove where the money was spent. Instead, this is left up to the discretion of the case officer.
Asked to explain the purpose of the accommodation kit grant, a spokesman for the department said: ‘When tenants cannot furnish a new property from within their own resources, they can apply for an exceptional needs payment to assist them in furnishing a property.
‘This may include items such as furniture and household appliances,’ she said.
The accommodation kits only make up part of the scheme. A further €22.4m was spent on other ‘exceptional needs’ last year, including prams, cots, funerals, energy bills, clothes and medical expenses.
In total, taxpayers splashed out €30.1m on ENPs last year, representing a drop of €5.56m on the 2013 figure.
A total 107,000 payments were made to 57,800 individuals last year. In 2013, 133,000 payments were made to 72,600 individuals.
But the average payment has actually increased from €491 per person in 2013 to €520 per person last year, despite a near-zero rate of inflation.
The department was unable to provide any information about how many people had been caught trying to cheat the system, how much money had been paid back to date or the number of fraud cases that had been pursued through the courts.
A spokesman said: ‘Overpayments recorded and recoveries received in 2014 form part of the statutory accounts of the department and are not available until they have been audited by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
‘In 2013, a total of €70.7m was recovered in respect of all social welfare overpayments. Recoveries are not broken down by scheme… so it is not possible to provide recovery figures in respect of a particular scheme.’
The amount paid out in each ENP case is decided by a case officer, who uses a set of guidelines to decide how much to hand over.
Recipients can claim €310 for cookers, €250 for fridge-freezers and washing machines, €150 for wardrobes, €180 for a double bed, €120 for a single bed, and between €100 and €150 for prams and cots.
Welfare recipients can also claim €120 for a kitchen table and €40 for each kitchen chair, €100 for a chest of drawers and even €10 per square metre for floor covering.
People are free to claim for ENP multiple times but applications are ‘unlikely’ to be granted twice in the same category.
Roughly one child in 27 born last year got a pram under the scheme, while one in 25 got a cot.
Taxpayers spent about €378,000 on prams and €412,700 on cots – enough to buy about 4,274 using the scheme’s maximum price limit.
One in every nine funerals was funded by the ENP last year. In total, €4.66m was paid out to 3,200 people to help with funeral and burial expenses.
The Central Statistics Office says there are no figures yet for the number of deaths last year, but recorded 30,018 in 2013. Using this figure, roughly one in every nine funerals was at least part-funded by the ENP. The average payment was €1,372.
The ENP funded enough flooring to pave the pitch at the Aviva Stadium with plenty left over. In total, about €728,000 was spent on flooring, enough for 88,800sq.ft.
A further €2.1m was spent on adult clothing, €156,288 on children’s clothing, €1.53m on rental deposits, €2.18m on rent and mort- gage arrears and €548,000 on household bills.
Another €490,000 was spent on hospital requirements and confinement costs, €1.1m on travel costs, €468,000 on heating and €55,000 on other ‘urgent needs payments’. The figures released by the department are accurate up to the end of October 2014 but do not include November or December. The figures have been adjusted on a pro-rata basis to get an idea of the annual spend.
Asked if claimants were required to prove that they spent the funds appropriately, a spokeswoman said: ‘ENPs are payable at the discretion
‘Fraud is not broken down by scheme’ ‘It’s at the discretion of the case officers’
of the officers administering the scheme, taking into account the requirements of the legislation and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance. Receipts may be required depending on the case.’
She added: ‘The vast majority of people receiving social welfare payments are genuine but there are a small number of people who set out to defraud the system.’
She said there were a number of control measures in place and that anyone found to have claimed a payment he was not entitled to was required to pay it back. She added: ‘The department has a responsibility to pursue all debts so as to protect public monies to the greatest extent possible. People who owe money to the department have a liability under law to refund the amounts involved.
‘It is the department’s policy to consider for prosecution cases of fraud against the social welfare sys- tem. The department ensures that all cases that merit prosecution are forwarded for consideration of legal proceedings and that all necessary evidential proofs are available.’
She also pointed out that funding for the scheme had dropped from €62.6m in 2011 to €30.1m last year.
John McGuinness, chairman of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, said the department must do more to tackle people abusing the scheme and called for receipts to be produced with every purchase.
He said: ‘Exceptional Needs Payments were flagged the last time Social Protection came before the PAC.
‘The PAC insisted that there should be an appropriate application form and that invoices or receipts should be given in all cases.
‘Before payment is made you should have to produce an invoice or a quotation and only following that should you receive payment.
‘Social welfare is extremely loose around these arrangements. It’s a matter that the PAC is concerned about.
‘There is a need to tighten up on the system of payment because how it’s administered concerns me. I don’t think the administration around it is transparent or accountable.’
Mr McGuinness said the State should take advantage of the ‘economy of scale’ resulting from the volume of appliances being purchased to get a better deal for taxpayers.
‘If the State is spending millions on appliances every year then the price should be very competitive. That doesn’t happen but it should happen.
‘There is no structure here – we should be getting a better deal.
‘It’s not satisfactory to have a case worker simply making these decisions; we need an accountable system of invoices and receipts.
‘When social welfare is before the PAC again we will be asking them about this. We asked them about it before and went into great detail and they were to implement a system.
‘Now that has not happened and it is a matter that will be pursued fully later this year,’ he said.
‘We need an accountable system’