A resident of Bnei Brak contacted the Office of the Ombudsman concerning the levels of eligibility for a subsidy that had been determined for her children, a son and daughter, attending a supervised daycare facility. She complained about the lack of availability of the call centre of the Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment. She also claimed that despite the fact that the details of the siblings that had been provided by their parents for determining eligibility were identical, the Department had approved the maximum subsidy level for the sister (Level 14) but for the brother had approved a level that did not qualify for a subsidy (Level 12).
Following the complaint, the Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment determined that the brother was also eligible for Level 14, entitling him to the maximum subsidy. With regard to the reasons for initially granting different levels, the Department explained that its computerized system did not identify and indicate cases of siblings, thus sometimes leading to the granting of different levels of eligibility for them.
The Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment disclosed that in its new computerized system, which was still in the planning process, a special characterization for identifying applications according to the identity number of the parent would be defined, in order to create uniformity both in the request for documents and in the determining of levels of eligibility for siblings.
With reference to the fact that the call centre was very busy, the Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment explained that one of the reasons for this was a bug in the system that caused requests for documents to be sent to applicants with no explanation, leading to a sharp increase in the number of calls to the centre. The Department added that this bug was being handled, after which less calls for explanations would be made to the centre and it would thus be less busy.
It will be recalled that in the Ombudsman's annual report that was published in June 2023, the Office of the Ombudsman detailed the systemic investigation that it had conducted regarding the availability of the call centre of the Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment and the different defects revealed by the investigation. The Office of the Ombudsman determined that the time it took to be answered by the centre fell below the level of service required of the Department. It was also found that the telephone service did not notify the callers of their place in line or it informed them of an incorrect place in line; defects were also found pertaining to the returning of calls by representatives of the centre to callers who had so requested, and so forth.
The Office of the Ombudsman continues to handle complaints concerning this issue and to monitor the actions taken by the Department for the Encouragement of Parental Employment for improving the service provided for the public and streamlining the process for handling applications for a subsidy, including reducing the waiting times at the call centre of the Department.