4 Delivering an effective system of
child support
28. The previous attempt to reform the system for
child support cost taxpayers £539 million. The Agency's Operational
Improvement Plan is expected to cost a further £321 million
over three years, £120 million of which is additional funding
from the Government. The remainder is being met through money
saved from the realigned IT contract with EDS (around £60
million): £50 million allocated to converting cases from
the old to the new scheme that has now been abandoned; and £90
million through efficiency savings across the Department.[45]
The Agency is now recruiting 1,000 additional staff to help deliver
service improvements and engaging many more through outsourcing
parts of its work. These increases in staffing need to be reconciled
with the Department's overall target to reduce staff by 30,000
over a three year period. The Department believes that though
a temporary increase in staff will result, by the end of 2007-08
the figure will be significantly reduced.[46]
29. The new Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission
needs to be clear about its priorities, such as processing new
applications and clearing the backlog of cases. Work to clear
the backlog of applications, which has been outsourced, has reduced
uncleared cases from around 330,000 to 248,000. Month on
month, the Agency is now processing more cases than it receives,
reducing the backlog. Recent data indicate further improvements
in the time taken to clear new cases, with a third of cases cleared
within 6 weeks, half within 12 weeks and the remainder within
6 months.[47]
30. The proposed new system places more emphasis
on parents to establish private maintenance arrangements. In Australia,
over half of cases are settled through private arrangements. Whilst
being more in control of the process and outcome may encourage
some non-resident parents to comply, there will still be those
who are insensitive to their obligations to their children. Nonetheless,
by encouraging naturally compliant parents to make their own arrangements—providing
a calculation service where needed—the Agency will be able
to dedicate more time to cases of non-compliance.[48]
31. When processing applications for child support
the Agency has tended to rely on the accurate and honest disclosure
of income by parents. The Agency does not have routine access
to information held by other Departments, in particular tax and
revenue Departments, to verify declarations of income. Although
the Department has been able to request information on specific
cases, access has been limited and untimely.[49]
A recent Government White Paper[50]
announced that latest tax-year information will be used as a basis
for calculating child maintenance, in line with systems in other
countries.[51]
32. Around 70% of applications received by the Agency
are from parents with care responsibilities claiming income related
benefits. Existing rules require parents with care who claim income
related benefits to apply for child maintenance through the Agency.
In these cases, any money recovered from the non-resident parent
is on behalf of the Secretary of State. This requirement is now
being removed so that parents can make their own arrangements
and the Agency does not risk over-ruling an already successful
arrangement between the parents.
45 Qq 23-25; C&AG's Report, para 2.58 Back
46
Qq 5-6, 17-22, 162-176 Back
47
Qq 143-145; C&AG's Report, paras 3.20-3.21 Back
48
Qq 58-62 Back
49
Qq 1-3, 188-194, C&AG's Report, para 1.12 Back
50
White Paper, A new system of child maintenance (CM 6979) Back
51
Qq 2-3 Back
| 
