1 Introduction
1. The Child Support Agency (CSA) was established
in 1993 under the Child Support Act 1991 to assess, collect and
enforce child maintenance on a formulaic basis. This was deemed
necessary by the perceived failings of the courts to establish
fair and consistent maintenance awards and to ensure that these
awards were kept up to date and enforced. However, the complicated
calculation process, IT failures and shortcomings in enforcement
all contributed to the poor performance, in practice, of the system
introduced under the 1991 Act. The Child Support Act 1995 introduced
provision for "departures" from the existing formula,
a move intended to address injustice but further adding to complexity.
2. In order to reform the system, the Government
brought forward proposals in 1999 which were enacted in the Child
Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000. These reforms
simplified the formula for calculating child support liabilities,
introduced new enforcement powers and promised a better service
for the CSA's customers. However, our predecessor Committee concluded
that the new scheme performed poorly from its inception in March
2003 owing to chronic problems with its IT and operational systems.[1]
One particular problem that beset the organisation was that old
scheme cases, taken on before 3 March 2003, could not be transferred
to the new scheme's simpler assessment process and the CSA was
left to administer two different systems concurrently.
3. The then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions,
Rt Hon John Hutton MP, announced in February 2006 a new "twin-track"
approach to the reform of child maintenance: a three-year operational
improvement plan (OIP) to improve the performance of the CSA,
together with a longer term re-design of the child maintenance
system to be led by Sir David Henshaw, former Chief Executive
of Liverpool City Council. Sir David Henshaw's report was published
in July 2006 (together with the Government's response); it concluded
that there was a need for a fundamental change in the administration
of child support and it recommended a "clean break"
to create a new start for child maintenance arrangements.[2]
4. The White Paper, A new system of child maintenance,
was published in December 2006. We published a report on the White
Paper, in March 2007.[3]
The White Paper stated that there should be four principles of
reform, to:
help tackle child poverty by ensuring that more
parents take responsibility for paying for their children and
that more children benefit from this;
promote parental responsibility by encouraging
and empowering parents to make their own maintenance arrangements
wherever possible, but taking firm action—through a tough
and effective enforcement regime—to enforce payment where
necessary;
provide a cost-effective and professional service
that gets money flowing between parents in the most efficient
way for the taxpayer; and
be simple and transparent, providing an accessible,
reliable and responsive service that is understood and accepted
by parents and their advisers and is capable of being administered
by staff.[4]
5. The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008
established the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (the
Commission) as a Crown non-departmental public body, sponsored
by DWP on 24 July 2008. On 1 November 2008 the Commission took
over responsibility from DWP for the functions of the CSA in operating
the statutory maintenance scheme. The CSA will continue to operate
as a delivery body of the Commission, retaining the "CSA
brand" until the introduction of the new statutory scheme,
currently scheduled for 2011. The Commission's stated objective
is to "maximise the number of effective child maintenance
arrangements in place for children who live apart from one or
both of their parents", both those privately arranged and
through the statutory provisions of the Child Support Act 1991.[5]
It has three core functions:
- Promoting financial responsibility
of parents for their children;
- Informing parents about the different child maintenance
options available and providing guidance; and
- Providing an effective statutory maintenance
service with effective enforcement.
6. Alongside the re-design of the system, the Operational
Improvement Plan (OIP) was designed to improve the CSA's service
to clients; increase the amount of money collected; achieve greater
compliance from non-resident parents; and provide a better platform
from which to implement the policy changes being brought in. It
promised to focus on
- Getting it right: gathering
information and assessing applications;
- Keeping it right: active case management;
- Putting it right: enforcing responsibilities;
and
- Getting the best from the organisation.[6]
7. The OIP set targets for the numbers of children
benefiting from maintenance payments and amounts of statutory
maintenance collected; time taken to answer telephone calls; time
taken to process new scheme applications and progress in clearing
the backlog of cases; progress in collecting arrears; and maintenance
outcomes. The OIP ran from April 2006 to the end of March 2009.
A summary of performance against the targets of the OIP is set
out in an appendix to the National Audit Office's (NAO) memorandum
to the Committee.[7]
8. We took evidence from Janet Paraskeva, Chair of
the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, and Stephen
Geraghty, Child Maintenance Commissioner and former Chief Executive
of the Child Support Agency, on 2 December 2009. In advance of
the session, we were provided with a performance report by the
NAO on the Commission, focusing in particular on performance against
the benchmarks of the OIP.[8]
We are extremely grateful to the staff of the NAO who undertook
this work for us.
9. So late in the Parliament, we have not had time
to undertake a full inquiry into the work of the Commission. However,
a number of points arose during the course of our evidence session,
relating particularly to performance under the OIP and its implications
for the Commission's ability to launch the future scheme on schedule,
which we wish to draw to the attention of the House and of our
successor Committee.
1 The Performance of the CSA, Second Report,
Session 2004-05, HC 44, paragraph 226. Back
2
Sir David Henshaw's report to the Secretary of State for Work
and Pensions, Recovering child support: routes to responsibility,
July 2006 and A fresh start: child support redesign-the Government's
response to Sir David Henshaw July 2006 Cm 6895 Back
3
Child Support Reform, Fourth Report, Session 2006-07, HC
219 Back
4
Department for Work and Pensions, A new system of child maintenance,
Cm 6979, December 2006, p 27 Back
5
Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, Annual Report
and Accounts 2008-09, page 5. Back
6
Child Support Agency Operational Improvement Plan 2006-09. Back
7
Ev 41 Back
8
Ev 23 Back
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