Appendix: Government response
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
[Paragraph 16] We are concerned that the work
conducted over the course of the Operational Improvement Plan
to rectify the problems with the CS2 IT system have either not
resolved the problems or have revealed new problems. More than
400 of these problems are sufficiently serious to cause new cases
to get stuck in the system. We hope that our successor Committee
will maintain a close interest in progress made in resolving the
IT problems with the old and current systems. We request that
the Commission supply our successor Committee with quarterly reports
on progress in this respect.
The Coalition Government notes and shares the Committee's
concerns surrounding the problems with the CS2 IT system. The
part played by defects in the IT system and the consequent difficulties
experienced by the CSA are well documented and not acceptable.
The Operational Improvement Plan (OIP) was designed
as a root and branch restructuring of the CSA not just of the
IT. The OIP included a focus on improving IT as far as was possible
and the plan stated that the CSA had agreed a prioritised programme
of work with their IT supplier to rectify some of the remaining
problems with the IT systems and to support other changes throughout
this period. No commitment was made to fix all of CS2 problems
as it was known that the system was fundamentally flawed and not
all problems could be remedied.
Some 500 defects were addressed through a programme
of prioritised enhancements, including a number of IT upgrades
and releases. The most significant of these was a major upgrade
to the CS2 system known as Productivity Release 1 (PR1) which
helped overcome the most troublesome CS2 defects and allowed the
CSA to provide an acceptable level of customer service—including
the identification of cases which became stuck in the system,
which the Agency was previously unable to do.
Since PR1, a series of releases to CS2 have been
implemented and a further major release was implemented in July
2010. Together, these have resolved more than 100 further problems
in addition to a number of functional improvements.
The Coalition Government accepts CS2 still has underlying
flaws and the system has not achieved what was intended when it
was first implemented. These underlying flaws have resulted in
the scope for further improvements to CS2 being limited. Given
the current fiscal climate the Coalition Government agrees with
the decision taken by the Commission that it is better to devote
resources to a long term solution rather than to continue to spend
money on CS2.
The Coalition Government notes and will give due
consideration to the Committee's request for progress reports.
[Paragraph 22] We are concerned at the almost
exponential rise in the number of clerical cases caused by shortcomings
in information technology. The additional costs of clerical administration
of cases are mounting alarmingly. We are concerned that this
does not represent the "stable base" that the Operational
Improvement Plan set out to establish for introduction of the
future scheme.
The Coalition Government acknowledges that the number
of cases being administered off the system is rising and shares
the Committee's concerns. It is however important to correct the
misconception that clients whose cases are handled in this way
receive no child maintenance and poor customer service. £5
million is collected monthly from non-resident parents whose cases
are handled off the system and the average amount collected each
year is similar across all cases, whether administered off the
system or not. The Commission also aims to ensure off system cases
receive a similar high standard of client service that cases administered
on the system receive. In 2009-10 the cash value accuracy figure
for all cases was 96.5% (comprising off and on system cases) while
for off system cases in the same period the figure was 96.9%.
The Coalition Government accepts that off-system
cases constitute a significant expense for the Commission and
that the costs of processing these will continue to rise. Furthermore,
although the Commission continues to seek to find means to prevent
cases from becoming "stuck", which is preventing the
number of cases from rising exponentially, it does not have confidence
that there are any meaningful short-term solutions to the problem.
Although the Operational Improvement Plan had no
specific commitments to reducing the off system caseload, the
Coalition Government shares the concerns of the Committee that
the increasing numbers of off system cases could be a risk to
the stable base required for the planned launch of the future
scheme. As part of the Spending Review 2010 process the Coalition
Government is reviewing with the Commission all plans, including
those for the future scheme, to ensure that child maintenance
is delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible. Part
of this work is to ensure that a long-term solution for off-system
cases will be prioritised.
It should also be noted that while the off system
caseload has increased; the Operational Improvement Plan has achieved
performance improvements which will assist with transition to
the future scheme.
[Paragraph 26] We welcome the steps that the Commission
has taken to learn from the disastrous mistakes made in commissioning
the CS2 IT system. We are encouraged by the organisation's confidence
that the IT system to administer the future scheme will be more
efficient to run and we note the strong case that has been made
for using off-the-shelf packages.
[Paragraph 27] However, it is often the process
of making different packages work together that creates IT problems.
We ask the Commission to keep our successor Committee up to date
with the progress of development of the future scheme system and
we therefore request that it make six-monthly reports to our successor
Committee on its work in this area.
The Coalition Government welcomes the Committee's
acknowledgement that lessons from the past have been learnt.
The Commission acknowledges there would normally
be risks associated with any new IT system working with older
systems, relating to data quality issues and technology conflicts.
Consequently there is no intent for the Commission's new core
business IT system to be integrated with or interfaced to old
CSA systems.
The old IT systems have known data quality issues
and therefore there is no intent to migrate any data from old
systems to new, for fear of contamination.
In addition, a separate Data Warehouse system is
in development which will hold old data for retrieval to support
our business processes without the need to migrate data.
The Government notes and will give due consideration
to the Committee's request for progress reports.
TRANSITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS
[Paragraph 36] The launch of the future scheme
represents the "clean break" from the past and current
systems of child maintenance recommended by Sir David Henshaw.
It is essential for the future health and equity of the system
of child maintenance that this launch and the transition of cases
from the old and current schemes is managed successfully. However,
we are concerned that the requirement to operate three schemes
on three different IT systems concurrently during the transitional
period will pose a formidable administrative headache.
[Paragraph 37] We are very concerned that the
escalating costs of clerical administration of cases risk placing
an intolerable burden on the Commission at just this crucial moment.
We also note that delaying the process of transition will only
increase the long-term costs of clerical administration.
[Paragraph 38] It will be for our successor Committee
to oversee the transition process and maintain a close eye on
the work of the Commission in this crucial period. We call on
the Commission to provide our successor Committee with six-monthly
updates on what steps it is taking to contain the number of clerical
cases and on the total monthly cost of clerical administration.
We also ask for six-monthly reports on its planning for handling
old and current scheme cases in the transitional period.
The Coalition Government accepts that any transition
period to the future scheme is a critical time. The Commission
assures us it has a robust plan for handling this. The Coalition
Government is committed to ensuring that the mistakes of rushed
policy and implementation are not repeated, which is why the current
plan envisages a transition process lasting three years. The plan
is predicated on reducing the running costs of the two existing
schemes, year on year, taking advantage of the efficiencies and
reductions in headcount which are and will continue to be made
within the CSA.
A key component of the Commission transition plan
is, as stated above, to prioritise off-system cases. The Commission
view is that, assuming the future scheme and transition begin
on schedule, there will be minimal risk of an intolerable burden
in the way that the Committee has envisaged. However, the Coalition
Government accepts that if the need for off-system processing
continues for longer than planned then expected costs are likely
to increase. As stated above, as part of the Spending Review
2010 process the Coalition Government is reviewing with the Commission
all plans, including those for the future scheme, to ensure that
child maintenance is delivered as efficiently and effectively
as possible.
The Commission provides detailed reports on performance
through its Annual Report and Accounts and its Quarterly Summary
of Statistics.[1] The latter
contains statistics on volumes of clerical (off-system) cases.
In addition, the Commission's approach to launching the planned
future scheme and transition will be put out to full public consultation
and regulations to introduce these will be laid before Parliament
through affirmative resolution.
The Coalition Government notes and will give due
consideration to the Committee's request for progress reports.
IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY AND CASE MANAGEMENT
[Paragraph 50] We commend the staff and management
of the CSA for their very substantial achievements in exceeding
their target by a wide margin for clearing the backlog of uncleared
cases and for meeting their target for processing new claims.
The CSA has also made big strides in improving its accuracy and
its levels of customer service. It is to the credit of all in
the organisation that, in these respects, it has never been working
more effectively. However, there is still room for improvement
and we hope that the Commission will be able to maintain this
momentum and urge it to ensure that it learns from these successes
in designing operations for the future scheme.
The Coalition Government welcomes the Committee's
comments on performance improvements achieved by the CSA's management
and staff and its recognition that the CSA has never been working
more effectively. Since the oral evidence session in December,
performance has improved further with the highest ever number
of children benefiting on the statutory scheme and the highest
ever maintenance outcome figure.
The Coalition Government agrees that there is still
room for improvement, which is why ministerial targets for the
Commission for 2010-11 are stretching. The target for numbers
of children benefiting through a maintenance agreement reached
following contact from Child Maintenance Options or through the
CSA is 950,000, and the maintenance outcomes target is 76%, compared
to 840,000 and 72% respectively for 2009-10. The target for collections
and arrangements made through the statutory scheme will remain
at £1.135 billion for 2010-11, a reflection of the current
economic climate and the declining inflow of cases into the statutory
scheme following the repeal of section 6 of the Child Support
Act in October 2008, which allowed benefit clients to decide whether
or not to use the CSA.
However, it must be emphasised that only limited
improvement is possible on the current statutory schemes. The
OIP's objective was to stabilise performance on these schemes
and it succeeded in delivering this. The Coalition Government
is now considering the best way forward to build on this in order
to deliver the improvements and efficiencies which clients need
and deserve and which represent value for money for the taxpayer.
The Commission has engaged a range of people recruited from the
private and voluntary sectors as well as harnessing the experience
of people who have worked in the CSA to ensure that the future
scheme learns from the lessons of the past.
IMPROVING OUTCOMES
[Paragraph 58] Whilst the newer maintenance outcomes
target may be more complete, it nonetheless appears to have been
set at a much more achievable level than the previous case compliance
target. Although the Commission met its revised Operational Improvement
Plan maintenance outcomes target, it missed the original case
compliance target by a wide margin. We ask the Commission to
set out how it calculated the maintenance outcome target to ensure
that it was sufficiently challenging.
The Commission is pleased that the Committee recognises
the shortcomings of the case compliance target and the fact that
the maintenance outcomes target is a more complete measure of
performance.
For the financial years 2007-08 and 2008-09, the
Department for Work and Pensions set maintenance outcome targets
for the CSA. These were intended to be consistent with the Operational
Improvement Plan case compliance targets of 75% by March 2008
and 80% by March 2009. In order to calculate these:
- the baseline was set at September 2005 (the last
period for which data was available when the original Operational
Improvement Plan targets were set); and
- the 80% case compliance target, which had originally
been intended for current scheme cases only, was extended to cover
the old scheme as well as the current scheme.
This resulted in a March 2009 maintenance outcome
target of 68.7% which was rounded to 69%. Further information
on how the calculation was made is included as an Annex.
The Coalition Government understands that this target:
a) was challenging because the base—61% in
September 2005—was so low and because the 80% case compliance
target, against which the new maintenance outcome target was based,
was itself a stretch (in September 2005, case compliance was 68%);
and
b) was effective because it drove an increase in
the absolute number and percentage of cases with a liability actually
receiving maintenance as set out in the table below.
| Number of Cases | Baseline (Sept 05)
| End of Operational Improvement Plan (March 09)
| % change |
| With a liability | 674,500
| 841,000 | 25
|
| Receiving maintenance |
411,400 | 593,500
| 44 |
| % Receiving maintenance
| 61% | 71%
| 16 |
[Paragraph 66] The Commission missed its 2008-09 target for
collection of arrears and acknowledges that the 2009-10 target
is looking very challenging. However, we welcome the Commission's
achievement in stemming the growth in arrears and anticipate that
the suite of new powers that it has obtained will stimulate further
progress. Reducing levels of arrears are key to restoring confidence
in the child maintenance system and represent an essential element
of the platform for launching the new system.
[Paragraph 67] We encourage our successor Committee
to maintain a close eye on progress in reducing arrears and to
that end, we call on the Commission to provide a six-monthly update
on progress, including specifically reporting on the use that
has been made of its new statutory powers.
The Coalition Government would also like to highlight
that it does not agree with the previous administration which
allowed the arrears target to be dropped from the Commission's
suite of Ministerial targets for 2010-11. Arrears collection is
a key priority and it is the Coalition Government's intention
to reintroduce an arrears target.
The Coalition Government accepts that there are a
number of non resident parents who wilfully refuse to meet their
child maintenance liabilities. The Commission recognises that
these more difficult cases need to be tackled and is committed
to taking a number of steps to enhance the way it pursues arrears.
This includes the following:
- re-deploying over 400 members of staff to chase
historic arrears
- when a non-resident parent misses a payment and
legal action is appropriate ensuring that this commences within
12 weeks
The Commission is also utilising the enforcement
powers available to secure arrears owed from non-resident parents
who refuse to pay. For the year ending April 2010 over 109,000
enforcement actions were taken. In addition from April 2010 where
the Commission has evidence that a person is about to transfer
an asset with the intention of avoiding payment of child maintenance,
or has already done so, it has the power to ask the High Court
to prevent the transfer from happening or to reverse it.
The Commission is also discussing with Ministers
the introduction of further enforcement powers, including those
contained in the Welfare Reform Act 2009 which permit the Commission
to issue administrative orders for the disqualification of driving
licences or travel authorisation.
The Commission reports on maintenance arrears and
the use of enforcement powers in its Quarterly Summary of Statistics
and Annual Report & Accounts. The introduction of further
powers will be subject to full public consultation.
The Coalition Government notes and will give due
consideration to the Committee's request for progress reports.
[Paragraph 72] The Operational Improvement Plan
explicitly set out to lift 40,000 children out of poverty. Improving
the operation of the child maintenance system is integral to the
Government's strategy for reducing levels of child poverty. We
are unhappy that the Commission's contribution to those cross-Government
targets cannot be precisely quantified. We call on the Department
to establish meaningful performance indicators for the Commission
to measure its contribution to efforts to combat child poverty.
The Coalition Government agrees that the lack of
quantifiable evidence as to the role the CSA has in reducing child
poverty is concerning. The Commission's role in reducing child
poverty is under review by the Coalition Government.
Following a number of attempts to develop a methodology,
it became clear that it was unlikely that a suitable measure could
be developed to precisely quantify the contribution of the measures
in the Operational Improvement Plan to reducing poverty. Assessing
the contribution of individual policies or initiatives (such as
the Child Maintenance Options service) or packages of policies
to the relative income poverty indicator is very difficult. This
is especially the case with the contribution of child maintenance
because of data challenges in this area. The Department acknowledges
that framing the 40,000 figure in the Operational Improvement
Plan as a target that could be measured was very unfortunate and
misleading.
Since the Operational Improvement Plan, the Department
has conducted extensive work to enhance our understanding of the
role of child maintenance in tackling child poverty. This work
indicates that, in terms of boosting household income, child maintenance
does not make a large contribution to reducing child poverty:
Child maintenance payments are estimated to have a small,
non-reportable, impact on the relative income poverty indicator.
The Department acknowledges the Committee's call
for performance indicators to measure the Commission's contribution
to tackling child poverty. Subject to the outcome of ongoing reviews
of Government expenditure/preparation for Spending Review 2010,
in future the Department will assess what role the Commission
can play in achieving the Coalition Government's child poverty
targets.
The September 2005 Child Support Agency Quarterly
Summary of Statistics is available at:
http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/child_support/csa_quarterly_sept05.asp
1 The Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics
can be found at:
http://www.childmaintenance.org/en/publications/statistics.html
The Child Maintenance and Enforcement
Commission's Annual Report & Accounts can be found at:
http://www.childmaintenance.org/en/pdf/annual-report/CMEC-2009.pdf Back
| 
