WEDNESDAY 19 JANUARY 2000

MS FAITH BOARDMAN, MR VINCE GASKELL, MR MICHAEL DAVISON AND MR JOHN LUTTON

  40. I am not concerned about the case where it is the person's fault, I am concerned about the case where it is the CSA's fault.
  (Mr Davison) If it is the CSA's error and it can be demonstrated it is our error, we have special payment arrangements where we would refund to the non-resident parent the over-payment they have made.

  41. And you would always do that automatically if it is your fault?
  (Mr Davison) If that was requested, yes.

  42. Only if it is requested?
  (Mr Davison) What we do when that situation arises, we have a leaflet which explains the special payment compensation arrangements and if the non-resident parent requests that, that money would be repaid.

  43. I am also very concerned, as the Chairman was, about the level of accuracy and clearly one issue here may be the level of training and, as you indicated there is something maybe we can do there, and it may also be the level and number of staff. Can you give any sort of budget figure which your budget would have to be increased by in order to enable you to be sure of, say, raising your accuracy to 95 per cent?
  (Ms Boardman) I do not think I honestly could.

  44. Because it is impossible to raise it that high? The system is just too difficult?
  (Ms Boardman) I think essentially so. This is a system which is basically requiring us to collect up to 104 different pieces of information and to take those into account in a very complicated way. I think it is not just a question of resources, although clearly some extra would help. It is not just a question of resources, it is the basic system which we are trying to administer and that is the reason for the new legislation.

  45. You are paying a lot of compensation now, I do not know how much your budget is for compensation this year, but is there any value in trying to bring about a higher budget for the CSA to give you better training facilities or more staff or whatever in order to cut down on the number of compensation payments you are going to make? There must be a balance point there somewhere, surely?
  (Ms Boardman) There is a balance point and I think if you ask any chief executive they could certainly use more money in a fruitful way. But this is essentially an issue which we were looking at in the best part of our planning for the run-up to the new system. As I indicated earlier, we are expecting to get extra resources to help bring our work up-to-date, which is one of the factors which affects our procedures, and also extra resources to improve our training over the next two years. So this is an issue which needs to be looked at as part of that.

  46. Do you have any idea how much more maintenance is being paid now than was paid in real terms to parents with care under the last year before the CSA came into operation?
  (Ms Boardman) By the end of March this year, we will in broad terms have doubled the amount which was collected and arranged.

  47. Ms Boardman, you appeared with Mr Davison and Mr Isaac in front of us on 5th December 1997 and Mr Isaac has been lucky enough to escape. At that time I expressed that I thought you had a bed of nails and I tried, I thought, quite desperately to say to you that I thought you had a very difficult task with your resources. I made the comment that the workload was going up and the amount of money was going down and your reply was, "Oh, this is only a marginal issue, I think" and you then went on to other aspects and you felt quite confident you would be able to handle the situation. Is it not a fact that the CSA has gone from bad to worse? Is it not a fact that it is a right shambles? Is it not a fact that we are all getting from our constituents more and more complaints about the way the CSA is operating?
  (Ms Boardman) I think basically we have improved quite significantly since I last spoke to the Committee, and I think there are many statistics which show that. As I have just indicated, the amount which we are collecting and arranging will have basically doubled over three years. Our case loads have also almost doubled over that period. Despite having basically flat line resources, we have coped with those, we have basically doubled our productivity. We have also introduced customer service improvements in key areas like telephone access to the Agency and we have dealt with a significant proportion of the backlogs.

  48. Mr Davison added to this back on 5th November 1997 when he said, "One of the big things in the development of the Agency improvements over recent years, the further improvements that we are planning, is that it is actually more effective and more efficient to do things right the first time, to improve our level of accuracy ... " and things went on like that. At the same time, Ms Boardman, you told the Chairman that you would be introducing computerisation over the next three years. According to my calculation that leaves you something like ten months to get the computer in, but when you were asked today you had no idea when you were bringing it in.
  (Ms Boardman) The computerisation issue that we were talking about at that stage was a concern and an expectation based on the current legislation that a new IT system would be needed. Since then, as you are aware, following the Green Paper consultation exercise there has been a White Paper which envisages very major changes in legislation. Quite clearly those plans for an IT system based on current legislation are no longer appropriate and the timetable concerning that is no longer appropriate. What we are now looking forward to and are working on is an entirely different IT system which will be brought in to support a completely different formula and system. Ministers have not yet decided precisely the implementation date. They have made it clear that they think it will not be possible to do that before the end of 2001. They have also made it clear that they are quite determined that we should not make the mistake which perhaps other IT projects have done of trying to fix a date too soon, we should try to do it properly.

  49. Ms Boardman, I can certainly agree with the fact that you have not fixed the date too soon because you have not fixed the date at all. I really have to question the motivation behind all of this because I think that matters are just sliding from bad to worse. I note from this report that the amounts outstanding from absent parents from 31 March 1997 have gone from 1.127 billion to 1.760 billion. That is a considerable increase. The volume of debt under full maintenance assessments has gone from 356 million to 899 million and so on and so on. There is I think one small area of reduction and that is the percentage of debt uncollectible on interim maintenance assessments. You know the difference between doing an interim and a full assessment. The more you can do the full assessment the better it might be. Can I ask you, when you appeared in front of us two and a bit years ago I know that Members were concerned that there had only been an increase of some one per cent between 1993-94 and 1996-97 in the number of child maintenance assessments containing errors, the figure having fallen from 40 to 39 per cent. What is the overall figure now?
  (Ms Boardman) I am sorry, I do not have that particular figure to hand. Can I ask you if I may provide it later?

  50. Well, of course, but does Mr Davison or Mr Gaskell or Mr Lutton know what is the percentage of overall error in child maintenance assessments that are going out?
  (Mr Lutton) The current level of accuracy, if that is what you are referring to, is 72 per cent. Therefore, the level of error is 28 per cent.

  51. We have an improvement here that the number of child maintenance assessment errors has fallen from 38 to 28?
  (Mr Lutton) In terms of current assessments. I am not sure about the base line figure, if that is the right comparison.

  52. I am not interested in the last year's figures, I am interested in your overall figures.
  (Mr Lutton) The overall figures for the current assessments being processed would indicate a 28 per cent level of error.

  53. No. Are those figures not for the year 1998-99?
  (Mr Lutton) The figures I am quoting are for the current year.

  54. But life goes back before the current year, does it not?
  (Mr Lutton) Yes.

  55. Does that figure of 28 per cent error include all of the previous assessments?
  (Mr Lutton) No, it does not. It is assessments that we are currently picking up for check. They would be mainly relatively recent assessments in that respect. What we could find is that in any individual case there are assessments that go back some years in which case we could well be picking up a legacy of error because in individual cases, as we currently check them as well as checking current assessment, we also go back to the beginning of the assessment period in which case we could find errors for that individual case.

  56. Ms Boardman, you denied the thrust or the direction of my questions in 1997 but are you, in fact, telling this Committee that in relation to the problem of these statistics that are emerging here which are not satisfactory you would welcome a little financial support in order to improve matters?
  (Ms Boardman) I am saying that we are planning and expecting to receive additional monies in order to help us make sure that the state of the operations is in a suitable condition to effect the new change.

  57. You are a hard woman to help, Ms Boardman. Bearing in mind you made all these statements on 5 November 1997 which basically have not come to pass, there have been some small improvements but basically the situation has drifted, are you happy that the amounts of extra money that you think are coming your way are going to be sufficient for you to be able to reverse some of these trends?
  (Ms Boardman) I think I have difficulty in answering you because we are still at the planning stage and at the discussion stage. We are quite clear that we need additional monies to do a range of things and I think that is accepted. Quite clearly there is a public purse interest here. We need to provide as accurate and proper estimates as we can. We will do that and we are expecting to get extra money.

  58. I do not know how I can go to a senior lady civil servant and say that is a Sir Humphrey answer, but it is a Sir Humphrey answer because last time I put this type of question to you and you ran away from it and you are doing exactly the same now. You must have some idea already of what sorts of money are necessary. You have been running this Agency for some time, you have seen the way it has been going wrong, you have seen the number of staff you are losing, you have seen you have not got the computer. You must have done some estimate of the amounts of money that you need to make sure that these, I think, quite frankly deplorable figures and percentages and returns are reversed.
  (Ms Boardman) First of all, I am afraid I cannot agree with you that there has not been progress. You are taking that as a base assumption. I fully accept that the debt figures are one area of the business which have continued to increase. However, they have only increased in line with the basic increase in the caseload. The real issue for us there, as has been set out in the White Paper, is that we need a much simpler formula in order to be able to reinvest the current resources that we have in pursuing that debt more thoroughly. It is the intention that we should get that assistance. There is a separate issue, which I accept is very important and which we are taking very seriously, which is planning for the introduction of the new system. Those plans are still at the formative stage. They are being done thoroughly and it is important that they should be done thoroughly. I do expect them to result in extra money and we need extra money. I am sorry that I cannot be more specific than that this afternoon.

  Mr Page: Thank you.

  59. I am surprised to see you sitting there, Ms Boardman, because I did not really know you existed. Every time I write to you it says in the letter of reply "In the absence of Ms Boardman..." and when I phone up to speak to you you are never there, so I was quite worried that you did not exist but I am delighted to see that you do, so welcome this afternoon. In your statement on the report you say "The complexity of the formula used to calculate the maintenance assessments leads to many errors, which impact on receipts and outstanding debt balances. These errors have been inherent since the inception of the Agency...." blah, blah, blah. That is all well and good, and I accept that, but many of the complaints that we get from our constituents are after the formula has been worked out and because of the failure of the CSA to deliver even when a formula has been worked out. If you look at the Report itself on pages 93 to 95, paragraphs 2.5, 2.10, 2.15 and 2.17, they are pretty damning are they not? They tell us, for example, that there were errors in 79 per cent of the full maintenance balances examined and one in four of the assessments were incorrect. The CSA staff have made these errors but the NAO picked them up quite simply. It gives to me the impression of indifference by the staff or at worst incompetence by the staff. What would it imply to you, somebody just reading this Report, as I did, for the first time?
  (Ms Boardman) It implies to me that I have staff who are very committed and are working extremely hard and have materially improved the position under extremely difficult circumstances in the last few years. It also confirms to me the reality behind the White Paper proposals and the draft legislation that is before the House that we cannot hope or expect to get beyond a certain level of accuracy given the current formula.