Clause
9
Annual
report to Secretary of
State
Andrew
Selous:
I beg to move amendment No. 10, in
clause 9, page 4, line 32, after
‘on’, insert ‘section 7(1)
and’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments:
No. 11, in
clause 9, page 4, line 32, at
end insert
‘;
and, in respect of each authorisation under section 8(1), details of
the body to whom the functions of the Commission have been delegated
and their performance in contributing to the Commission’s
objectives.’.
No.
9, in
clause 9, page 4, line 32, at
end insert—
‘(e) the number
of children who live apart from one or both of their parents who are
eligible for child maintenance under the Child Support Act
1991;
(f) the proportion of those children for whom child
maintenance has been paid in the previous
year;
(g)
the type of arrangement—whether voluntary or under the statutory
scheme;
(h) where child
maintenance has been paid, details of the amount; the frequency of
payment; whether paid in full or in part; and whether paid on
time.’.
No.
69, in
clause 9, page 4, line 32, at
end insert—
‘(e) the extent
to which the Commission has made progress regarding the collection and
payment of
arrears.’.
No.
82, in
clause 9, page 4, line 32, at
end insert—
‘(d) details of
any complaints received and how these complaints were
handled.’.
No.
13, in
clause 9, page 4, line 39, at
end insert
‘and must make a motion
in the House of Commons in relation to each such
report.’.
Andrew
Selous:
We have reached clause 9. It is an extremely
important clause, and it is very good as far as it goes. However, we
contend that it does not go nearly far enough, which is why we seek to
amend it fairly extensively. There are six amendments in this
group—four tabled by the Conservatives and two by the Liberal
Democrats—and I find myself in broad agreement with all
six.
Amendment No. 10 would have the
effect of requiring CMEC’s annual report to the Secretary of
State to report not only on the extent of contracting out by CMEC, but
on the extent of the agency arrangements covered by clause 7, which we
have just debated. We know from that clause that any relevant authority
can be used by CMEC in the course of the discharge of its functions. I
listened carefully to the debate, but I do not think that the matter
came up, so I would be grateful if the Minister gave us an idea of the
range of different relevant authorities with which CMEC might make
agency arrangements. It would also be useful to know what functions and
services are likely to be contracted out or provided by those other
relevant authorities. Does the Minister have in mind any limit on the
extent of the contracting out or agency provision of services, or is he
completely open-minded on that? Are there any areas in which he thinks
that contracting out or the use of agencies by other relevant
authorities would be particularly
appropriate?
Amendment
No. 11 would require CMEC to give details of each authorisation to
contract out a function, and of how successful each contractor had been
in achieving the commission’s objectives. We have no objection
in principle to contracting out, as my hon. Friend the Member for
Forest of Dean said during the earlier debate, but it would be useful
to know which organisations were acting on CMEC’s behalf and how
successful they were in achieving their objectives.
There is, of
course, a danger that CMEC’s reputation could be damaged if its
contractors do not act with high standards. The Minister will want them
to have the highest possible standards, so hopefully that will be
written into the contract terms and there will be ongoing monitoring
and review. It is important that we receive such assurances now given
the huge issues of reputation with which the CSA is dealing. We must
now state how we want the contractors to behave, if CMEC is to avoid
having to deal with damage to its reputation in future.
One Parent
Families has said that there is always a risk with contracting out by a
Government organisation of the details of the contractor’s
performance being
hidden behind the veil of commercial confidentiality. Of course, there
will always have to be some commercial confidentiality. That is the
harsh reality of the business world, but it is important that the
public interest in knowing whether public money is being spent wisely
is not overlooked. That is why CMEC must be placed under a statutory
obligation in the Bill to disclose the performance of its contractors,
at least once a
year. It
is not as though there is not a lot of history to the issue. Let us
consider the excellent report of the Public Accounts
Committee, “Child Support Agency: Implementation of the Child
Support Reforms”. Somewhat bafflingly, it was published the day
after the Bill’s Second Reading. I, for one, found that
particularly unhelpful. I wish it had been available before that
debate. Page 11 of the report sets out the relevant financial details
of a large number of contractors. Such information has come into the
public domain in a useful way through the good offices of the Public
Accounts Committee, but I would be more reassured if the Bill required
such information to be provided annually so that CMEC has to prepare it
regularly.
It is also
important that the commission justifies its decisions regarding the
contracting out of its functions in terms of its objectives under
clause 2 rather than only on cost grounds. I hope that I have been
helpful to the Committee by explaining the rationale behind amendment
No.
11.
Mr.
Boswell:
Will my hon. Friend consider
the position in which there is a partial contracting out of a
particular function by CMEC, with some activity—perhaps
geographically defined—in the private sector, and another part
of the country covered by direct arrangements? Is it not particularly
important that at some stage, subject to the constraints that he has
already expressed, the general public should have a handle on whether
what is being run by the private sector is as efficient or superior to
the delivery and direct provision of the public
sector?
Andrew
Selous:
As always, I am grateful for my
hon. Friend’s wise words. He is absolutely right. It is in
everyone’s interest that we have a direct comparison between the
public sector and the private sector and between the arrangements in
place in different parts of the country. We are discussing the spending
of public money for important objectives and we need to have all the
information out in the public domain in as transparent and open a way
as possible. That is the overall objective of all six amendments to the
clause, which is good as far as it goes, but does not go nearly far
enough.
12.45
pm
Amendment
No. 9 would place a requirement on CMEC to provide detail of the nuts
and bolts of what it does day to day, rather than the current high
level overall strategic direction targets that are listed in subsection
(3)(a) to (d). Specifically, it would require CMEC to report on the
number of children who are living apart from one or both of their
parents and are eligible for child maintenance under the Child Support
Act 1991 and the proportion for whom child maintenance was paid in the
previous year. One could obviously work out the number of children who
have not received child maintenance from that information.
The amendment
would also place a requirement on CMEC to disclose the type of
maintenance arrangements, whether voluntary or under the statutory
scheme, so
that we can find out whether the Minister is achieving his objective of
encouraging voluntary maintenance agreements, which is widely shared
and supported in the Committee. When child maintenance has been
paid, the amendment would require CMEC to provide details of the
amount, the frequency of payment, whether it has been paid in full or
in part, and whether it has been paid on time. That requirement refers
to the total figures for the UK as a whole. We need that level of
specific detail as a minimum to be in the public domain once a year,
provided by CMEC.
Incidentally,
will the Minister assure the Committee that CMEC will produce quarterly
performance statistics as the CSA does now? I would be extremely
concerned if there were any diminution in the provision of those
statistics. I think that the reason why six amendments have been tabled
on clause 9 is that the CSA does not have a good reputation for its
management of data and reporting systems. Figures are sometimes
revised, put in the public domain, revised, brought back and so on. It
is incredibly important to get those systems right so that we can judge
whether progress has been made and as an aid to the CMEC board. All the
proposed additional requirements in subsection (3) would assist the
board in achieving its objectives. The public discussion and interest
that would arise from the provision of that information to the public
domain would be entirely healthy for achieving the overall
objectives.
One
Parent Families had more to say on the clause. It referred to the fact
that clause 2 shows that the primary objective is to maximise the
number of children who live apart from one or both parents for whom
effective maintenance arrangements are in place. It made the point that
if the objective is to drive the performance of the CMEC board in a
meaningful way, it will need to have regular data at its disposal to
measure how successful its interventions have been at increasing the
number of children for whom child maintenance is being
paid.
It is worth
reflecting on the current situation in terms of data that is put into
the public domain. Child maintenance receipt figures come mainly from
large annual surveys, such as the families and children’s study
and the family resources survey, which tend to be at least a year and a
half out of date when they are published. Although they are
informative, such surveys will only identify on a retrospective basis
whether the commission’s activities have worked. CMEC needs the
information on a real-time basis to find out whether a greater
proportion of children living in separated families are receiving child
maintenance as a result of its work. The intention of all the
amendments is to help CMEC to meet its overall objectives.
Amendment No.
69 relates to debt, on which we had an extensive debate in a our
sitting on 19 July, recorded at columns 113-118 of the Official
Report. The amendment is a slightly briefer version of amendment
No. 12. As noted in column 113, you agreed that we could press it to a
Division at the end of the debate on the amendments to clause 9,
Mr. Chope. I restate my wish to do so, because debt is such
an important concern.
Amendment No.
69 highlights the importance of debt. It is worth reflecting that only
a limited amount of information about the agency’s debts and its
success in recovering them finds its way into the public domain.
Each year, the Comptroller and Auditor General reports on the
agency’s client account and the total amount of debt owed, which
is broken down into “collectable”, “possibly
collectable” and “probably collectable” sums, as
well as into sums under the old and new schemes, and sums owed as a
result of interim maintenance assessments and full maintenance
assessments. I wonder whether, in future, there will be three columns
in which the Comptroller and Auditor General can record sums relating
to old, new and CMEC schemes. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that in
his response. The information that the Comptroller and Auditor General
puts in the public domain is useful, but is of limited help in
understanding the agency’s performance and the strategy behind
it, which is why I sympathise with amendment No.
69. We know that the
agency has analysed its debt book and knows the proportion of
non-resident parents owing different amounts of debt. Those figures are
broken down into bands, such as those owing less than £1,000 or
those owing more than £50,000. In passing, I must say that it is
pretty shocking that there are some parents with care, mainly mothers,
who are owed more than £50,000 as a result of the failings of
the agency. I know that the Minister entirely shares that
sentiment.
Some
work has been contracted out to private debt collectors. The annual
report that will be made under the clause will be a useful place in
which to report the commission’s strategy for pursuing debtors
in different categories and the usefulness for that purpose of private
debt collectors, compared with the commission’s staff. That
information is not shared currently, but it should be. In the spirit of
transparency, and given that the Minister has talked about a clean
break and a new start, such provisions should be included in the Bill.
I therefore hope that hon. Members will support amendment No.
69 and will not resist amendment No.
12.
The
Bill will give CMEC considerably more powers than the agency has to
collect child support debts. That is right, because we know from the
National Audit Office that, in June last year, the CSA’s
enforcement teams were dealing with only around 8 per cent. of cases
with arrears. The Minister properly referred to the operational
improvement plan, and we all wish it the greatest success. It promises
to quadruple the number of staff devoted to debt collection and
enforcement by March 2009, and is pledging to collect an extra
£213.8 million of historic debt. It is appropriate to require
that CMEC reports on the success of those operational improvement plan
measures, as well as on its plans to increase its debt recovery
targets, in light of the greater powers that it will have as a result
of the Bill. Overall, the greatest standards of accountability should
be set by the commission in reporting on the recovery of money owed to
parents with care for children, and in our view the obligations on the
commission should be made crystal
clear.
Amendment No.
82 would add to clause 9(3) the
words:
“details of any
complaints received and how these complaints were
handled”.
That would be a
useful and important amendment—I should have tabled it myself.
Again, I shall refer to the excellent report by the PAC, which is one
of the most powerful and influential Committees in this
House—it
normally talks a good deal of sense—and about which we often hear
a great deal in the media. Paragraph 11 on page 6 of that report, which
was published on 5 July 2007,
states: “55,000
complaints were made to the Agency in
2005-06”.
The
number of complaints received will be a key indicator of public
confidence in the success of CMEC, which is why I believe that the Bill
should require the publication of those
figures.
Amendment No.
13 is important because it would require the Secretary of State
to
“make a motion in the
House of Commons in relation to
each...report”
That
would ensure that each annual CMEC report to the Secretary of State
would be debated in the Chamber by all Members of Parliament. Given the
importance of the role that CMEC will perform and the impact that its
success or failure will have on the lives of so many children and
families, I do not think that the amendment is too much to ask. Hon.
Members should not have to apply by ballot for Adjournment debates on
CMEC which would be shuffled off to Westminster Hall. An annual debate
in the Chamber, required by statute, on a Thursday afternoon, or
whenever it can be put into the legislative programme, will help to
maintain MPs’ interest in, and knowledge of, these very
important child-support
matters. I commend amendment No. 13 to the Committee, therefore, and
look forward to its support on as many of the amendments as
possible.
Paul
Rowen:
I congratulate the hon. Member for South-West
Bedfordshire on his remarks. There is a great deal of agreement on the
six amendments before us, partly because there is very little detailed
information in the Bill about how CMEC will operate, which is why
clause 9 is so important. The draft regulations have not been
published. However, from our own case loads and the history of the CSA,
we all know of the huge concerns about the way in which the CSA
operated and, therefore, share a desire to ensure that the new body is
set up and run properly. One of the ways in which Parliament and hon.
Members can do that is through the use of an annual
report.
The
Chairman:
Order. The Committee is adjourned until 4
o’clock this afternoon, when David Taylor will be in the Chair.
I look forward to seeing hon. Members again in
October.
It being
One o’clock,
The Chairman
adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the
Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at Four
o’clock.
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