INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Child Support Agency (the Agency) was established
as an Executive Agency of the Department of Social Security on
5 April 1993 to implement the Child Support Act 1991 and to operate
a new system of child maintenance.
2. In 1997, the Committee of Public Accounts examined
the efforts made by the Agency to improve the accuracy of assessment
work, the speed with which they process work, and their management
of outstanding debt.[1]
On the basis of a further report by the Comptroller and Auditor
General on the Agency's 1998-99 Client Funds Account,[2]
the Committee again took evidence from the Chief Executive of
the Agency. We examined the progress made towards improving the
Agency's performance, the increasing levels of compensation payments
for poor administration, and the plans for implementation of a
new Child Support scheme.
3. This Committee has long been critical of the performance
of the Agency, and of the complexity of the child support arrangements.
The changes proposed in the White Paper 'A new contract for welfare:
Children's rights and parents' responsibilities', combined with
a new information technology system, offer a solution to many
of the problems that have beset the child support arrangements
and the Agency since 1993.
4. Two main general conclusions have emerged from
our examination:
- It is important that the existing high levels
of error in the Agency's records are rectified quickly and that
they are not allowed to contaminate the accurate baseline data
on which the new arrangements will rely. It is regrettable that
the new arrangements cannot be introduced until April 2002 but
this should allow the Agency time to clear out the legacy of past
errors.
- The nature of the Agency's work is such that
its staff have to make difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions,
based on complex rules and unclear data, in situations where human
relationships have broken down and where feelings run high. It
is important that such staff have the personal qualities to deal
with such situations and that they are well-trained. It must be
difficult for the Agency's management to achieve this situation
when so many staff leave each year, as many as 27 per cent in
1998-99, The Agency must address this problem urgently.
5. In more detail, our conclusions and recommendations
are as follows:
On efforts to improve the quality of the Agency's
performance
(i) The inadequacies of the child support
arrangements and the Agency's information systems, and the Agency's
poor performance ever since it was set up in April 1993 are well
documented. Yet the fact remains that 5 years on, 23 per cent
of new maintenance assessments made in 1998-99 were wrong, 35
per cent of receipts from non-resident parents were for the wrong
amounts, and 79 per cent of maintenance balances were incorrect.
All these errors affect hundreds of thousands of people at very
stressful periods of their lives, and are totally unacceptable
(paragraph 22).
(ii) Compliance with child support assessments
is an increasing problem, and total debt has now reached £1.7
billion. The Agency have taken action to improve compliance, by
targeting those debts most likely to be recoverable, and by targeting
groups, such as the self-employed, who have a track record of
non-compliance. The growing mountain of debt will remain a problem,
even after the new legislation is introduced and we look to the
Agency to further develop its debt collection arrangements drawing
on best practice elsewhere in the public and private sectors (paragraph
23).
(iii) The Agency are relying heavily on
new legislation which will simplify the child support arrangements
and on new information systems, and we look at these later in
our report. But in the meantime, we welcome the steps taken by
the Agency to improve customer service through face to face interviews,
improved telephone services, better targeting of resources, and
improved communication. We also welcome the Agency's assurance
that the new Decision Making and Appeals arrangements are leading
to real improvements in customers' understanding of the system,
and in helping the Agency speed things up (paragraph 24).
(iv) Levels of staff turnover at the Agency
are worryingly high, although loss of staff is expected to reduce
from 27 per cent in 1998-99 to under 20 per cent in 1999-00. We
urge the Agency to continue and strengthen the action they are
taking to improve staff retention and skills, so that when the
new legislation is implemented the potential gains are not reduced
by staffing problems (paragraph 25).
On the adequacy of compensation arrangements
(v) Over the past year the value of compensation
to individuals as a result of the Agency's maladministration has
quadrupled, to over £4.35 million, mainly as a result of
work to clear backlogs of cases and revised rules on calculating
payment. But this is misleading, because the bulk of this sum
merely put individuals concerned in the position they would have
been had the Agency not made an error. The total value of real
"consolatory payments" in 1998-99 was £561,663,
and the average payment of £133.15 (paragraph 35).
(vi) Given the circumstances of the many
cases which members of the Committee have come across, involving
significant difficulties for constituents, we are concerned whether
these "consolatory payments" really do compensate individuals
for the full impact of maladministration on their financial interests
and lives. We urge the Agency to look again at the rules governing
compensation, in conjunction with the Department of Social Security,
the Ombudsman and the Independent Case Examiner, to see whether
they need adjustment to make redress truly fair and reasonable
(paragraph 36).
On the preparations for the new child support
scheme
(vii) The changes proposed in the White
Paper 'A new contract for welfare: Children's rights and parents'
responsibilities', combined with a new information technology
system, offer a solution to many of the problems that have beset
the child support arrangements and the Agency since 1993. And
while some will be disappointed that these new arrangements will
not be implemented until April 2002, it is essential that they
are properly planned and tested (paragraph 44).
(viii) Although the Agency have a number
of steps in hand to clear backlogs and cleanse existing data,
we are concerned that the significant legacy of error might not
be tackled before 2002, and might therefore pollute the new system.
We look to the Department of Social Security and Agency to ensure
sufficient resources are deployed to remedy past errors before
existing cases are transferred to the new arrangements (paragraph
45).
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