Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
PROFESSOR STEPHEN
MCKAY,
MS ANNE
KAZIMIRSKI AND
MS MAVIS
MACLEAN
17 JANUARY 2007
Q60 Justine Greening: What you have
just said in many respects might support having them separate.
So people working in the existing organisation should stay there
and work with that existing client base and sort that out. Then,
perhaps, the new organisation could focus on new cases. But then,
actually, there is a danger, certainly to my mind, you are absolutely
right, that that will be one of the problems, because people working
in the CSA at the moment will now be in the C-MEC organisation
and that will be yet more change and a new system that they may
be involved in administrating. Do you think maybe that is a reason
why we could have had a clean break approach?
Ms Maclean: I think the CSA staff
are actually vastly underrated. I think there has been an enormous
amount of change over the least year or so. I think there are
some very able people there whose expertise is of great value,
and it would be important to value it and use it in this transition
period.
Professor McKay: I think this
question of implementation is really important. I suspect, going
back to what I was saying earlier, the words "clean break"
were probably a bad choice in this area. "Clean break"
got bad press in divorce—a bad choice of words. I think,
against a clean break, if you think about the formation of the
CSA back in the early 1990s, it was a brand new organisation,
all new staff, having been trained from scratch, all new IT and
that obviously did not work, and so you need some kind of plan
for continuity, I think. I am probably more favourable to Henshaw's
view that we need to somehow draw a line between the old and the
new. In practice it is very difficult for a clean break, because
as soon as someone applies for maintenance, say someone has split
up for the second time and they have already got a CSA assessment
from a previous partner, doing it in practice is very difficult.
One of the reasons the new CSA system had problems was because
all these cases had to be transferred because they were dealing
with people who were on both systems. I think, in practice, it
is very difficult to do that, but the question of how you implement
this does need to be looked at in detail. It is reassuring that
there is a reasonably long timetable to it, but I think it does
need to be looked at pretty closely.
Q61 Justine Greening: If you were
making some recommendation about key areas that you need to be
focused on to make sure that that transition is done smoothly,
what would you say?
Professor McKay: I think I would
go with Mavis's point, that a lot of the existing staff, who were
quite a battle-hardened group, do have a lot of expertise in dealing
with the public, trying to get information out of people. People
have got quite a lot of experience about that, so I can see people
from the organisation being at the forefront of the new organisation.
Beyond that, I do not have anything specific to recommend, but
there is a lot of expertise there. You want to ensure you draw
upon that whilst at the same time you want to make a break with
the past, and it is a difficult one to achieve.
Ms Kazimirski: I do think that
the fact that there will be a different name, if there is a new
government agency, and so on, in that way, there might be an impact
on people's perceptions. The agency may start losing some of the
stigma of inefficiency, and so on, if it does have that change.
The down side, if you did leave the current cases behind, in a
way, and did not change things for them, they would not get all
the benefits that we are talking about of having a simpler system,
the other improvements talked about such as the disregard for
benefit cases. I do not think it would be very fair to leave those
behind.
Q62 Justine Greening: I think people
in the existing CSA arrangements can apply to C-MEC, so nobody
would be excluded from it. It sounds to me like what you are saying
is that there is an aspect of it—which is how it is dealt
with to the public—that is actually quite important, so
making sure that the public know that this is a fresh organisation,
if you like, with the experience of the old one. Would you say
that is a fair comment, that that is quite an important thing
for the Government to look at?
Ms Kazimirski: I would say it
is, yes. Even if all the cases were able to apply to the new agency,
I would have thought it might be simpler to assume a complete
transition, just because that might be easier than actually dealing
with separate applications. I think, in order to make it simpler,
there is a suggestion that parents on the older system can avoid
a new assessment. It sounded like that was suggested for there
to be less work for staff to deal with, but I am not sure that
would be the case really. To re-evaluate, for there to be an active
re-evaluation, it is a little bit like a new application really,
so I think it would be simpler to avoid it.
Professor McKay: Do we want a
statement going out saying, "C-MEC, we used to be the CSA"?
I imagine not. Or when talking to someone on the phone, "We
are C-MEC." "What is that?" "We used to be
the CSA." Is this the kind of image we want to be getting
across? How is this going to be tackled?
Q63 Justine Greening: You think that
is something that needs to be seriously considered?
Professor McKay: Yes. At the moment
some staff are phoning people sensitive to the situation saying,
"Hello, we are from the DWP", and then, when they get
to the person through the receptionist, they say, "We are
the CSA." If it is direct to C-MEC that is not looking quite
so easy to do.
Q64 Justine Greening: I think that
is one of conundrums between doing a clean break and having C-MEC.
C-MEC could be a very powerful way of saying to people, "No,
this is a new approach and it is a better approach. We have ironed
out some of the problems of the previous approach." On the
other hand, if it is the same person they were talking to before
and it is C-MEC, which used to be called the CSA, that sort of
undermines that?
Professor McKay: Yes.
Q65 Justine Greening: I think you
have hit upon a useful point for us in the inquiry. I think that
is going to be quite a tricky thing to get over, and there may
well be some benefits from having it under one roof and perhaps
doing it that way. It is certainly not a black and white picture.
Professor McKay: Sure.
Q66 Justine Greening: What about
the resource inside of it? You have alluded to the staff. Do you
think that C-MEC needs to be resourced properly in a way that
perhaps that the CSA was not? Is that going to be a challenge
for us?
Ms Maclean: Yes.
Ms Kazimirski: I think one of
the things to take into account is the fact that it feels at the
moment like the number of people who will be happy to go on to
a private arrangement has been overestimated. I am wondering whether
the assumption that it is going to be more efficient in all these
ways is based on the idea that there is going to be a smaller
work load. I think it might be initially probably the opposite,
because it is a transition and there will be a lot of new things
to deal with. It might be the case that more investment is needed
now to prove how efficient it all is and to then encourage people
to go on to private arrangements so that fewer resources are needed
in the future.
Q67 Justine Greening: The current
CSA has the operation improvement plan that has already been worked
on to try to improve its performance in dealing with its client.
How do you see that sitting alongside the introduction of the
C-MEC organisational approach? Do you think those two things fit
naturally or will they be running parallel but not really together?
Ms Maclean: I cannot answer that.
I hope they will. They will obviously have the same aims and a
lot of shared skills, and hopefully they will work well together,
but it is hard to say. I think we are all struggling. I have to
remember to say "child maintenance" and not "child
support". People say, "Is that different from child
support?", and I say, "No." I do think the use
of language is very important, as you suggest.
Q68 Justine Greening: Is there anything
further that you wish to add?
Professor McKay: I think the lessons
they are learning from enforcement and taking more action at an
early stage is all useful, but I do not have anything particular
on that, how one will flow into the other.
Q69 Natascha Engel: The thing that
I took out of our session with David Henshaw, even more than the
concept of a clean break, was the complete shift in the way of
doing things. He was saying that the problem with the CSA at the
moment is the fact that we are asking an IT system to be so complicated
that it deals with people's incredibly chaotic lives, which actually
it cannot do, so there is no point in even attempting that because
it is always going to fail. Actually need people to talk to people
about their chaotic lives. I would, therefore, see it as very
important to have a CSA completely distinct from a new organisation
doing a completely new thing. That is where the concept of a clean
break does come in and where it does become very important. Therefore,
I would disagree with the idea that it is more about getting the
nitty-gritty right. I think what he was talking about was a really
massive shift away from the way that we do things now to the way
that we should be doing things. Do you agree with that?
Ms Maclean: I know that he is
very concerned about telephones being answered immediately and
pleasant offices—absolutely; I am all in favour of that—and
reliance on IT, not in the past.
Ms Kazimirski: It seems that all
the staff from the CSA at the moment have never actually helped
cope with the situation, and actually some CSA staff have helped
parents. Face to face meetings are hard to get, but when they
have been able to get them they have been very helpful. We have
had a parent with care in our research who had a very difficult
call with a member CSA staff, a difficult call because her situation
was crying on the phone, and she was so touched by the CSA member
of staff calling her back the next day. That level of personal
empathy, I think, we should not be saying is not happening at
all at the moment.
Natascha Engel: In fact, he was saying
exactly the opposite to that. We are asking CSA staff to deal
with IT systems rather than dealing with people and that they
should be dealing people to people rather than dealing with IT
systems. He was actually praising the CSA staff.
Q70 John Penrose: Since we are talking
about transition, we know we have got the old system and the new
system and we have had all the IT difficulties. You have said
yourself that implementation is going to be absolutely key, and
we are still, I think, waiting for a date upon which, in theory,
the old system people can move onto the new system and now we
are going to have the new, new system. So, my question is simple.
I think that the Government is saying that in about 2010 or 2011
migration from both the old system and the new system will take
place to the new, new system under C-MEC and they reckon it is
going to take about three years. Given the complete failure to
do that so far from the old system to the new system, is that
achievable?
Ms Maclean: I have no idea. One
can only hope and pray, I think.
Q71 John Penrose: That is a slim
basis to build a large investment on. Does anybody else have any
stronger views?
Ms Kazimirski: My research is
focused on the parents' point of view, not the CSA staff, and
so I am unable to comment.
Q72 John Penrose: Professor McKay,
help us out?
Professor McKay: No; I am sorry.
Q73 John Penrose: Is there anybody
who can tell us?
Ms Maclean: You need organisation
sociologists and business people. I wish I could help you, but
I cannot.
Q74 John Penrose: That is a resounding
maybe. Thank you very much.
Professor McKay: The problems
with IT have not typically been around doing the actual assessments,
and not actually doing the sums has not been the problem, it is
much more the linking of addresses with phone numbers. It has
been a major IT failure, but there are bits of the IT that do
work as they are supposed to. We have all learned. The date of
the change over is when it is ready and when it is ready is—
John Penrose: I am kind of concerned
there, because that is an essential plank of getting this new
system right, and if nobody can stand up and say, yes, it is going
to happen, that is really very important.
Chairman: There is nobody here. We need
to find somebody.
Q75 Harry Cohen: Can I ask you if
you think the Government is right to sell off the debt to private
collection (bailiffs really) and what you think the implications
are for low-income families generally?
Ms Maclean: I am not uncomfortable
with it. I think the Government needs to learn from the skills
and expertise of private debt collectors in terms of locating
people and determining their assets and so on, but I think you
have to be quite careful about there being some element of somebody
making a profit out of collecting this money. I think that could
be very unfortunate. Also, you would have to be careful about
gentle treatment of some very troubled people.
Q76 Harry Cohen: I am not sure whether
I should ask you, but I will anyway. Do you think there should
be safeguards in there?
Ms Maclean: Very much so. We have
had the CSA suicide stories in the past, and we really do not
want any more of that kind of issue.
Professor McKay: By their nature
the bailiff collection route is going to be for the middling sums;
it is not going to be for the really large sums. If you have got
tens of thousands of debts, you are not the kind of debt that
would go to the bailiffs, for instance, although that is one they
would clearly like to go after, I think. The bailiffs are likely
to be much more involved in the high hundreds low thousands route,
which is likely to be a low-income, relatively vulnerable group.
On the other hand, there is this huge debt owed to the state.
Would you like some of it or none of it? We could get some of
it reclaimed.
Q77 Harry Cohen: I am fascinated.
To follow that on, what happens to the really high debt? Is that
not collected by the bailiffs? Presumably that would stay with
the CSA or C-MEC or whatever, or it would just be written off?
Professor McKay: Coming back to
my earlier point, the problem with the clean break is that you
end up with this kind of CSA residuary body, which must become
one of the most depressing places to work, a finite lifespan and
having to chase all these `unchasables'. Clearly, the really high
debts are the cases where you want to be getting into charging
orders and third-party charging on bank accounts. There are ways
to deal with really large debts, but it is highly specialised.
Q78 Harry Cohen: So it will balance
out sooner or later.
Professor McKay: For the really
high debts, I suspect, you would not want to go down the bailiff
route, you would want to go down to property charges and these
kinds of areas.
Ms Maclean: You have to distinguish
between "cannot pay" and "will not pay" and
the very early debts of the CSA, which were to do with interim
assessments, emergency tax code, like an operating in a fairly
artificial way. That is the part of the debt which Sir David wanted
to write-off. I think there are very different forms of debt hidden
within this blanket term. That is why we need the expertise of
the private sector to help us with working out which approach
would work for which kind of debt. I think there are some debts
which are almost artificial, and there may be huge numbers of
zeros attached to them but they are historic and really the construct
of the system rather than individuals being recalcitrant.
Q79 Harry Cohen: Following on from
that point, the organisation resolution in their submission to
us said how will the bailiffs being brought in be applied? Will
the decision be made in those cases where the arrears are the
highest or where enforcement is deemed to be the most difficult?
I was particularly concerned that the debts would be sold off
where the underlying calculation could been incorrect, no doubt
(presumably, unfair as well), like the new system, when it was
the new system, came in when a lot of people who should have been
applied to that were left paying a lot more, and they might think
it was very unfair, so the debt was much higher. That is a very
real point which, presumably, you would agree with?
Professor McKay: The CSA have
always said one of their problems is that there is no easy way
for them to go through and identify people with really big debts.
There is no automatic identification of them. It seems a very
strange way to work, not to be able to identify where the biggest
debts are. Also, once you get into using bailiffs, you are getting
a lot of the original debts down to these things called "interim
maintenance assessments", which were used back in the 1990s,
where a very high level of income was assumed, which probably
should have been changed, plus earning some fees added on top
as well. If it goes down the bailiff route, people face the prospect
of having £50 to £100 added to the bill just because
the bailiffs have knocked on the door. I do not think that would
be helpful. A lot of the debts from the early mid-1990s are essentially
artificial and the White Paper looks at ways of dealing with that.
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