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Failing organisation

The Child Support Agency has been branded “a failing organisation” which may need to be scrapped, in a report published by the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee this week, writes Kirsty Brown.

According to the report, the extent of the current crisis is such that it could take a further five years for the CSA to deliver the full performance that the government expected would be in place by 2001. This has led to proposals that for organisation to be abolished and a new set of policies to be put into place.

Poor management and inadequate staff training, together with computer problems have been blamed for what is deemed to be the “failure” of the CSA, which has seen rising levels of complaint, escalating unrecoverable debts, and an increasing staff turnover. Although staff commitment is thought to be the only thing which has kept the agency going, the committee reported a total loss of confidence both inside and outside the organisation.

Seriously disapppointed

In the report, former CSA chief executive Doug Smith admitted to being “seriously disappointed” in the agency’s operation over the last 18 months, but denied that it was a failure.

“What we have found over the last 18 months is that the policy changes have gone well and clients, by and large, welcome the simplicity and straightforwardness of the policy changes,” said Smith.

“At the heart of the issues on implementation of the policy have been the problems we have faced over the last 18 months with the computer system. It is not possible to operate a large, complex business in today’s world without having a sophisticated level of computer support.”

IT

The lack of a fully functional computer system was also identified by the committee as being at the root of many of the problems faced by the agency. It was hoped that the introduction of a sophisticated new IT system would help to solve the problems blamed for some of the agency’s poor performance.

But instead, problems with the programme and delays in the conversion of cases from the old scheme to the new, resulted in information being lost and mistakes in maintenance calculations. This led to a high number of parents losing out on support payments, while many non-resident parents ended up contributing too much or too little.

Parents also experienced difficulties contacting the agency, calls were ignored and letters were mislaid.

Panicked

The committee’s report described the case of a parent (who was not named), who applied to the CSA under the new scheme, and after months of phoning the agency and speaking to a different staff member each time, was wrongly told that her son’s father had refused to pay maintenance.

“I just panicked and thought that we would never get any money,” she said. “They told me that for five months and then they rang me up in September and said, ‘He has paid and we’ve got all the money in our bank. He’s paid every month on the dot.”

Essential to end poverty

Chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, Kate Green, said “An effective child support system is essential to ending child poverty. Over half of children in one-parent families live in income poverty and these families rely on child support payments to help make ends meet.

“Parents have been saying for years that the CSA isn’t working, and cannot believe that they will be asked to wait another five years for the problems to be sorted out.”

The committee report states an urgent need for a strategy to progress the cases of parents who are still waiting for maintenance payments and a realistic target date set by which payment arrangements on new claims can be made. It also suggests estimated dates for waiting times be made available to parliament before the proposed final review on March 24.

Nicola Simpson, chief executive of the organisation One Parent Families, said: “The report is a devastating catalogue of how the agency is failing lone parents…We urge ministers to strongly back the committee’s recommendations to tackle the agency’s devastating failure.”