Almost all of €47million back to school fund spent

Nearly €43m of the €47.4m budget for back-to-school payments for families has been spent by the Department of Social Protection.

An extra €10m was added to the back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme’s 2017 allocation by Leo Varadkar in the days before he vacated the department to become Taoiseach in June.

This has facilitated a 25% increase in the amounts paid to children of school-going ages, with €125 provided for those aged up to 11 and €250 in respect of those over 12.

Up to last Friday, the Department of Social Protection had made payments to nearly 131,000 families. The total of €42.6m includes €34m paid to over 107,400 families by mid-July in automatic payments as they were in receipt of qualifying welfare and other payments.

Since mid-June, nearly 46,700 households have applied to the department for the back to school clothing and footwear allowance. Just over half of those have already been approved, with payments worth €8.6m made to those 23,400 families up to the end of last week.

A further 4,000 applications were unsuccessful, as the department said they did not meet the eligibility criteria for the scheme. This may be because the family was not in receipt of a qualifying payment or that the household means were found to be above the relevant income thresholds.

The refusal rate of 14.6% is much higher than a corresponding 10.5% figure around the same period a year ago. By August 22 last year, only 2,230 of the 21,244 processed applications were unsuccessful.

It is unclear, at this stage, if the higher refusal rate to date this year is a result of more families close to the threshold applying because of the increased payment rates, or if rules are being applied more strictly.

Total applications so far are running on a very similar pattern to last year, and the 44,314 received up to August 18 was nearly 400 fewer than at the same point in 2016. But, before the extra money was given to the scheme in June, a slightly lower budget than 2016 had been set aside because fewer families were expected to be eligible due to improved circumstances.

With over 19,300 applications still to be processed, up to last weekend, the department could expect to award payments to nearly 16,500 families if current success rates continue.

Based on average payments of nearly €370 to each family awarded under the scheme on foot of applications, that could see a further €6m paid out before any of the thousands more claims still likely to come in by the end of September are dealt with.

If the payments look set to go over the €47.4m budget, Mr Varadkar’s successor as social protection minister, Regina Doherty, might have to seek approval to use savings elsewhere in her budget or to be given a supplementary budget.

On a visit with Mr Varadkar and Education Minister Richard Bruton to Stanhope Primary School yesterday, Ms Doherty said her department has also increased funding by €5.5m for the school meals programme, which will benefit over 250,000 children for the coming school year.