Memorandum submitted by Public and Commercial
Services Union (PCS) (CS 06)
INTRODUCTION AND
SUMMARY
1. The Public and Commercial Services Union
(PCS) is the largest trade union within both the civil service
and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). PCS represents
over 96,254 people working in the DWP including the majority of
staff employed by the Child Support Agency (CSA).
2. PCS welcomes the select committee's timely
inquiry and is happy to supplement this written submission with
oral evidence.
3. PCS remains concerned about the overall
performance of the CSA and the impact that this has on our members
and service delivery to the public.
4. PCS believes that one of the key issues
facing the CSA is its ability to keep its head above water, and
it is currently struggling to do so. PCS is concerned that the
implementation of the budgetary and staffing cuts announced as
part of the Government's efficiency drive will have a disastrous
effect on PCS members and customer services. PCS believes the
Agency is not in a position to manage these staffing reductions
without seriously damaging its levels of performance and service
delivery.
5. In his foreword to the Agency's Annual
report 2003-04, Doug Smith, the Chief Executive, says: "2003-04
was in any terms a difficult year for the Agency." He goes
on to attribute what successes the Agency has had to: "the
commitment, above and beyond of staff to provide the best possible
service to clients despite constraints imposed on them by the
computer service." PCS wholeheartedly supports this view.
6. This submission covers the following
issues:
— The CSA's performance and pay.
— The impact of staffing reductions
and budget cuts on CSA staff and customer services.
— The performance of the CSA in running
two child support schemes.
— The progress of case migration from
the old to the new scheme.
— The compliance and enforcement regime.
THE CSA'S
PERFORMANCE AND
PAY
7. PCS welcomes the recognition from the
Chief Executive (above quote) of our members work. However we
are concerned that this and other praise whether it comes for
the Chief Executive, Ministers or MPs does not transpire into
more substantial rewards for CSA staff.
8. Our members expect and deserve to have
their efforts "above and beyond" rewarded by a pay increase
that reflects the complexity, difficulty and pressure of the job.
It is widely acknowledged that the work that CSA staff do is amongst
the most challenging in the civil service. However, the pay levels
in CSA unfortunately remain amongst the lowest in government.
9. For example, an Administrative Officer
(AO) joining CSA earns just £12,070 a year, while in other
civil service departments the starting pay for an AO is up to
£3,000 a year higher. If the long-term performance of the
Agency is ever going to settle at a satisfactory level then the
underlying problems of low pay in the Agency, and its parent department,
must be addressed.
10. The starting salaries for staff in all
grades should be increased to reflect the market rate common in
other civil service departments. A system of pay progression should
be introduced to enable staff to move up the pay scale of their
grade. Despite continual promises, management have failed to introduce
such a scheme in recent years.
11. Whilst the responsibility for CSA pay
levels rests with DWP rather than the Agency Executive team, these
pay problems impact significantly on the CSA's performance.
RECRUITMENT AND
RETENTION
12. CSA has the highest staff wastage rate
both in the DWP, and in comparison to many other better-paying
departments. PCS believes this tends to force the Agency to divert
its resources into a continual programme of training new recruits,
many of whom will fail to stay with the Agency for more than a
couple of years. This means that there is a serious lack of experience
within the department, yet in a business as difficult and complicated
as the CSA experience is vital. The current pay levels help to
drive staff out of the Agency and contribute towards a continuous
uphill battle for the Agency to establish a workforce that can
consistently deliver a satisfactory level of performance. It is
within this context that PCS believes urgent action needs to be
taken to reverse this situation by addressing the endemic low
pay levels.
13. The past year has seen staff dissatisfaction
with pay hit record heights. CSA staff, along with other sections
of the DWP workforce, have been actively involved in an ongoing
pay dispute between the DWP and PCS. Staff who are based in the
CSA have taken strike action in unprecedented numbers on two occasions
in February and April. At the same time, performance has been
affected by a long-term withdrawal of co-operation and an overtime
ban.
14. CSA needs its staff to work in partnership.
It is clear from the current protracted dispute that the Agency,
and its parent department, is unable to foster a partnership spirit
until the pay inequalities experienced by the CSA and the DWP
staff are dealt with. PCS asserts that the CSA's performance will
continue to be disrupted until staff receive a fair deal on pay.
THE IMPACT
OF STAFFING
REDUCTIONS AND
BUDGET CUTS
ON CSA STAFF
AND CUSTOMER
SERVICES
15. Another "reward" that CSA
staff have received for their work "above and beyond"
the call of duty was the announcement in the budget that the DWP
had to lose 30,000 staff by 2008. The CSA's share of the staffing
reduction is the loss of around 4,000 staff by March 2006. This
is out of a current staff "in post" figure of around
12,000.
16. PCS believes that the job cuts will
lead to a significant fall in the levels of performance that the
CSA will be able to achieve and customer service will inevitably
be affected. Complaints are likely to rise on the back of increased
delays in processing applications. A reduction in CSA resources
serves to limit the work of the CSA and as a result less money
will be paid to children.
17. To refer back to the Chief Executive's
opening remarks in the Annual Report, logic dictates that if you
take away 30% of the staff then the number and quality of any
such successes must be affected.
18. The Chancellor's justification for these
job cuts was the use of improved and modernised IT. PCS has already
highlighted (in other submissions to the committee) that despite
the heavy investment, CSA's IT is not operating as it should and
is quite incapable of supporting the proposed reduction in jobs.
19. The prospect of job losses in the CSA
has seriously affected staff morale, especially in the context
where PCS members cannot see what evidence there is to justify
the job cuts.
20. Potentially, when the child support
reforms (CSR) are fully implemented, when the IT system called
child support 2 (CS2) works as it should, when the telephony system
is properly embedded and when all the cases on the "old rules"
have been migrated to CS2 and converted to the new legislation,
then, there may well be scope for reviewing the size of the Agency's
workforce. But until this time the work remains to be done to
get the Agency to this situation and these aspirations do not
represent the current circumstances.
21. CSR has not been implemented. CS2 continues
to operate way below an acceptable level, problems remain with
the telephony system and over 800,000 cases remain locked onto
the "old rules" and old IT, with still no timescale
for their migration and conversion.
22. PCS believes that the proposed job cuts
cannot be justified in the current operational context within
the CSA unless the Agency and elected representatives are prepared
to accept a reduction and deterioration in the quality of the
Agency's performance. Yet in the absence of this debate these
cuts are already being implemented. For instance, the Agency's
2004-05 budget was substantially reduced in the wake of the budget
announcement to a level considerably below that which the Agency
had budgeted for.
THE EFFECTS
OF THE
CHANGES SO
FAR
23. The consequences have already been felt
as a desperate drive for "savings" begins and it is
PCS members who are bearing the brunt of these savings. For example,
within days of the budget announcement, the Agency announced that
the CSA office in Basingstoke would be closed within a year. The
future for the 85 staff working there is now completely unknown.
The Basingstoke office processes `new rules' cases on CS2. It
is a front line office, directly delivering a service to CSA customers.
Despite it being used for work of the highest priority to the
Agency, it is still targeted for closure. PCS strongly believes
that vital front line public services carried out by offices such
as Basingstoke should not be curtailed and therefore PCS believes
that the decision to close this office should be reversed.
24. The announcement of the staffing reductions
in the budget was immediately met with a freeze on all forms of
recruitment in the CSA. This freeze is still in place and prevents
the CSA recruiting any permanent or temporary staff. It is also
having an immediate impact on the Agency's performance. Essentially
the recruitment freeze means that the Agency is not allowed to
replace staff that leave and this helps to contribute towards
a reduction in the levels of service provided to the public.
25. In practice the majority of staff who
leave the Agency are those working in key front line jobs such
as the "new client teams". When they leave, their caseload
has to be spread amongst the remaining staff. These staff are
already struggling to keep on top of their existing caseloads,
as is shown by the increased numbers of complaints regarding service
delays. The recruitment freeze therefore, not only increases the
pressure on our members, it quickly creates delays in processing
cases. Given the high numbers of front-line staff who leave each
month, this recruitment freeze is already severely affecting staff
and performance.
26. The impact of the budget announcement
is being felt in other ways that affect the Agency's performance.
Plans to increase the resources in areas such as enforcement (which
had previously been identified as a priority area) will have to
be scaled down. This will lead to less parents with care (PWC)
receiving the money they are due and to more non-resident parents
(NRP) being allowed to get away without paying child maintenance.
27. Enforcement work is a specialist area
and it is also relatively labour intensive. As it often results
in legal action, the work has to be accurate and capable of standing
up to close scrutiny. It also involves direct interactions with
NRPs and computers cannot do this kind of work effectively. The
Agency needs experienced, well-trained and well-motivated staff
to carry out this work in an effective manner. PCS would like
to emphasise to the committee that cutting huge swathes of staff
out of an organisation like CSA will have a real impact on their
constituents hoping to see their case enforced and resolved. It
is a myth that such savings can be generated by cutting waste
or by modern IT systems. PCS members within the CSA believe that
the reduction in resources for the CSA will mean that frontline
services, such as enforcement, will be detrimentally affected.
28. PCS is also concerned about the ongoing
review into the Agency's "face-to-face" service. This
service provides customers with the opportunity to speak to someone
in person in order to resolve their problems. PCS believes that
this service is vital to the Agency's ability to increase its
levels of compliance and enforcement. Evidence suggests that many
of the hardest enforcement cases can only be resolved if staff
visit NRPs at home or at work and use their inspectors powers
where necessary. The precise details of the Agency's review of
the "face-to-face" service have yet to be made available
to PCS. We are led to believe that the overall effect will see
a reduction in the numbers of staff employed in this area of work
and a reduction in the number of sites from which the service
is delivered. At present there are over 600 staff working on "face-to-face".
Our expectation is that this will reduce to around 400-450 staff.
29. PCS fears that the CSA may also completely
withdraw staff from some of its smaller and more remote sites,
making direct contact with customers in these areas considerably
harder. PCS believes that some of the consequences of these measures
will include longer delays before customers can be interviewed,
longer delays in making cases compliant and longer delays in bringing
cases to court.
30. Another area where we also anticipate
a reduction in performance of the Agency as a result of the budget
cuts is in the area of opening hours. CSA has been at the forefront
of the civil service in expanding its opening hours to an 8.00
am to 8.00 pm service, including providing a Saturday service
as well. Few other areas in the civil service have gone down this
route to the same extent and the Agency deserves credit for its
determination to provide a service at times when clients wish
to be served. However despite these improvements, the Agency has
recently announced a review of its opening hours as part of the
drive to cut costs and support the budget job losses. It will
be CSA customers as well as PCS members who feel the adverse effects
of this development.
SICKNESS RATES
IN THE
CSA
31. CSA staff work under enormous pressure.
The drive to meet performance targets is unrelenting and has been
exacerbated by the spotlight being focused on the performance
of the new scheme. PCS believes that the emphasis placed on unrelenting
targets has come at a human cost. Sickness levels have increased
substantially in the Agency over the past 15 months, particularly
in teams working on the new scheme. For example in the Eastern
Business Unit (EBU), which is located in England (as opposed to
Belfast), sickness rates have increased by 50% since March 2003.
It should also be noted that this part of EBU is almost exclusively
working on the new scheme cases, and that work-related stress
is one of the main causes of these dramatic levels of sickness.
In PCS's view there is a direct correlation between the problems
that staff have had to face in delivering the new scheme and the
prevalence of work-related stress. Our fear is that as staff numbers
are reduced, the pressure on those remaining will grow disproportionately
and this may result in more ill health within the workforce. PCS
wants action to be taken to address the causes of stress and ill
health at the CSA and we believe that the proposed staffing reductions
are likely to make the situation worse.
COMPLAINTS IN
THE CSA
32. In the last year we have seen a substantial
increase in the number of complaints received by the Agency. The
Annual Report refers to a 62% increase in complaints compared
to the previous year. PCS thinks that this is a clear indication
that there are major problems with the overall performance of
the Agency. It is clear that the problems with the new IT system
are responsible for a significant proportion of the complaints
but many of the complaints are about the excessive delays in the
Agency starting to process new applications. This stems from the
decision (taken by Agency management before the time that the
new scheme went live) to stockpile new applications. Due to the
problems with CS2, these new applications were left un-progressed
for longer and longer and until the anxious and frustrated customer
complained. What is particularly concerning about the delays is
that despite having a valid maintenance application from a PWC,
the Agency failed to contact the NRP promptly because the cases
had been stockpiled. As the NRP's liability can only start from
the date that the CSA first contacts him/her, there are a substantial
number of cases (several thousand we believe) where PWC have been
denied any maintenance for lengthy periods. This lost maintenance
can never be recovered, as the NRP's date can never be backdated
to a time before the Agency first contacted the NRP.
33. An associated problem (with the increase
in the number of complaints) is the number of staff needed to
process these complaints. Most of the staff addressing the complaints
have been taken off "new client teams" or "maintain
compliance teams" (ie they are taken off the core processing
work). Therefore there are less people to do core work as more
staff are diverted to address the complaints caused by the core
work not being done properly and without delays. A reduction in
staffing levels in this context will, in our view, lead to complaints
not being actioned in a timely manner and it is likely that it
may also result in an increase in complaints because a lack of
staff will mean delays will become more prevalent.
34. Despite these severe problems PCS members
in CSA continue to work exceptionally hard to make the most of
a very difficult situation. As we have already made clear, the
future performance of the Agency will be seriously affected by
the proposed staffing reductions and it will be PCS members and
the public who will suffer the consequences. PCS would like to
ask the committee to use all of its influence to seek a reversal
of the Government's policies on these matters.
THE PERFORMANCE
OF THE
CSA IN RUNNING
TWO CHILD
SUPPORT SCHEMES
35. PCS believes that running the two schemes
simultaneously hampers improved performance in a number of ways.
There is an ever-decreasing pool of staff trained to process "old
rules" cases. This has often left a handful of staff responsible
for "old rules" cases as management are reluctant to
train new staff on procedures that could be quickly out of date.
This would have been practical if the migration and conversion
of the "old rules" cases had happened within a year
of the start of the new scheme. But as delays get longer, so the
number of staff able to work on "old rules" cases gets
smaller.
36. Running two schemes at once is also
administratively difficult. For instance, it requires two sets
of statistics, two sets of training and two sets of procedures.
This is expensive and inefficient. In the situation where the
Agency continues to run two systems at once it is, in PCS's view,
extremely unwise to proceed with staffing reductions.
THE PROGRESS
OF CASE
MIGRATION FROM
THE OLD
TO THE
NEW SCHEME
37. The vast majority of CSA cases remain
under "old rules". The Minister has still not set a
date for the migration and conversion of these cases. This means
thousands of NRPs are still lumbered with complicated formula
and the higher average maintenance calculations. It also means
that thousands of PWC are still denied the benefits of the child
maintenance premium. It is becoming more difficult for our members
to continue to justify this delay to CSA customers. Especially
as they were led to believe that they would be moved from the
old scheme to the new scheme much faster.
38. If the original timetable for CSR had
been adhered to, all these cases would have been on the new system
by April 2003. Fourteen months later and we still do not know
when they will be converted. The staffing reductions proposed
for CSA were originally intended to be implemented after the migration
and conversion of the "old" scheme. Indeed these original
plans were proposed so as to maximise the Agency's staffing levels
during the period of the bulk migration and conversion as it was
widely acknowledged that this period would see a peak in customer
activity. Now it appears that the staffing cuts may be implemented
during the migration and conversion period. This will be extremely
difficult for the Agency to manage, it may also impact on customer
services and there may not be enough staff to deal with the increased
level of customer activity.
THE COMPLIANCE
AND ENFORCEMENT
REGIME
39. The single most important measure that
could be taken to improve compliance and enforcement is to ring-fence
all staff working in these areas and exempt them from the proposed
staff cuts. If the staffing reductions go ahead then it is our
firm belief that compliance rates and enforcement successes will
suffer.
40. At present the Agency is struggling
to achieve its case and case compliance targets on the new scheme.
The 2003-04 end of year figures for new scheme cases showed 42%
case compliance against a target of 78%, while cash compliance
was 51% against a target of 75%. On old scheme cases the targets
for both case and cash compliance were met. This could indicate
that as more cases are converted from the old scheme to the new
scheme we can expect compliance rates to get worse. Clearly the
requirement to get the CS2 system operating effectively is crucial
to improving compliance rates. Until this is done it is hard to
see matters improving in spite of initiatives that are tried by
the Agency.
41. Enforcement is one area that is largely
untouched by the problems with CS2 as the procedures for enforcing
cases are essentially the same under the old and the new rules.
After a slow start the Agency has begun to encourage staff to
refer more cases to enforcement and the Agency has also made the
processes for doing this easier to follow. In spite of the changes
such cases still tend to be time consuming and labour intensive.
This can act as a barrier to maximising the number of cases taken
down the enforcement route.
DEBT REDUCTION
42. PCS believes the first measure needed
is for the CS2 system to start operating properly so that cases
can be dealt with on time. Until this happens cases will continue
to be un-progressable on the computer system. This means that
no action can be taken to calculate liability or to collect debt
apart from by the small teams that have been set up to clerically
process some of these cases.
43. The second measure PCS believes is needed
is the staffing reductions being put on hold. Even if the IT system
does improve, the Agency still needs people to use it and needs
people to address the cases where there are large amounts of debt.
The staffing reductions will, in our view, lead to a greater build
up of debt in the Agency because the proposed reduction in staff
will lead to a reduction in the capacity within the Agency to
carry out this important work.
June 2004
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