Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment in his capacity as the Minister responsible for income support programs.
I think everybody in this room is aware that we’ve recently implemented a new financial system and I think we’re probably all aware that implementation of software generally causes problems, as does any programming change; there are bugs to be worked out and so on. My constituents have, unfortunately, experienced the effect of some of those bugs from the system. So I’d like to ask the Minister what has been the impact of SAM, the new financial information system, on the provision of income support payments to their clients. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular area has been a real true challenge since the SAM system has been implemented dealing with income support clientele. At the same time, we try to expedite the process itself on to the communities. We deal with 33 communities, so it’s quite challenging. But at the same time I think we are improving our system as we go along.
There have been some certain circumstances where there's been some delays that the Member is alluding to; we’ve remedied the situation, but there are others out there as well. But we’ll do what we can as a department, whether we issue manual cheques in the meantime. But it is a system that has created some challenges at our doorstep and we must overcome those challenges and we are working with it. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister for that answer and I appreciate that the department is working their way through the problems. But when a problem does occur, when an income support payment to a client is delayed, I’d like to know whether or not the department has protocols or policies in place to help the staff work their way through a particular delayed payment. To me the most important thing is to ensure that the clients get their monthly income support payment as soon as possible. So does there exist something within the department protocols or policies that the staff can use to ensure that clients get their payments within a reasonable time frame when a system problem is encountered or some other delay? Thank you.
Mahsi. This particular issue is very complex. With our caseloads, they’ve almost doubled, dealing with the income support clientele. At the same time we have our resources, experts in these areas that deal with individual clients in the communities and there are certain areas where they need more information. That kind of delays the process itself. We stress to the clients and we stress to the communities in the Northwest Territories that we require all the documentation before we issue, whether it be subsidies or cheques or SFA and so forth. So it’s all depending on the documentation. At the same time we deal with the system itself, but there are processes in place where individuals assist each other, the clientele in the communities, the superintendents, the client service officers, and our first priority is the clientele so they can have food and shelter in their communities.
Thank you. I accept that answer from the Minister, but my concern is not with a problem where the client has not provided all the information that’s required for the officer to make a decision or to approve the payment. My concern is when it’s a system problem or when it happens to be a staff error, which, heaven knows, unfortunately occurs. At no fault of the client, some of them have had to wait until well past the 15th of the month in order to get their monthly income support payment. In my mind, that’s not acceptable. So I’d like to ask the Minister what date, when during a month should a client expect to receive their income support payment. What is an accepted amount of time that they must wait?
The timing would vary in the communities. At the same time we certainly don’t want clients to wait as long as they could. We try to issue, whether it be manual cheques if the system is down. In small communities we certainly deal with issues pertaining to the technology or the Internet system. We have to keep those in mind as well. If those happen, then we go with the manual cheque run. We do what we can to deliver service into the communities. There are some glitches. There are some challenges before us, but we continue to work with it.
Twice now I’ve heard the Minister say that we issue cheques. I understand that cheques are mailed out, that people can’t go and pick up their cheques. I have a bit of a difficulty with two things: one, that somebody has to wait for a cheque to be mailed -- goodness knows Canada Post is not the most efficient organization in the world -- and the other is that we have to issue cheques. So one way to speed up payments to clients, in my estimate, is to allow for electronic direct deposit to a client’s bank account. I know that doesn’t work in all communities, but is this something, can the Minister advise, that ECE will put in place to speed up payments to clients?
I’m glad the Member raised that issue. Those are the key factors that we’ll take into consideration on a going forward basis. Like I said, there’s always room for improvement and those are areas we will continue to make progress.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
