Conclusions and recommendations
1. The good practice evident in the way
the Department designed and introduced the first phase of the
2012 scheme reflected lessons learned from previous programmes.
The key factors behind the successful introduction of the scheme
included: identifying what had gone wrong with the previous schemes;
maintaining a stable and experienced leadership team that brought
together both policy and operational expertise to the project;
and implementing the scheme progressively, by moving forward only
when the Department was confident it could introduce each stage,
rather than trying to meet pre-announced deadlines. The Department
decided on a pathfinder approach for implementing the first phase
of the scheme to identify problems early. It started with a small
number of cases, and increased the volume only once it was content
that the system was operating as intended. The 2012 scheme is
simpler and more efficient to administer than the previous schemes,
for example, by automating the process of collecting data on parents'
income from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) systems.
Recommendation: The Department should evaluate
the introduction of Phase 1, in particular the roll-out and pathfinder
approach, to identify good practice to apply when planning future
programmes and share this more widely in the public sector.
2. The Department has had stable senior leadership
of the 2012 scheme. The programme
director, senior responsible officer and executive team in charge
of child maintenance have all worked on child maintenance for
several years. The scheme's leadership brought together operational
and policy people into programme planning. The Department noted
that decisions about roll-out required some judgment, as not all
aspects of a programme could be tested in advance. We are pleased
to see that these judgments were being made by a stable and experienced
team.
Recommendation: The
Department should ensure that major programmes have resilient
and stable leadership teams in place from the development stage,
who have the insight to make critical judgements about programmes.
3. The impact that charging to use the statutory
service will have on the number of parents willing to adopt family-based
arrangements instead is uncertain. A primary
aim of the reforms to the child maintenance schemes is to encourage
more parents to make family-based arrangements, rather than rely
on the statutory scheme. The Department estimated that the 2012
scheme would lead to around 250,000 fewer statutory cases, equivalent
to a reduction of a quarter by 2018-19. But it remains to be seen
whether the charges for the statutory scheme have been set at
the right level to achieve this objective. Gingerbread believes
the Department had been unrealistic about the number of parents
who would be able to make their own private family-based arrangements
that last. According to a survey of callers using the gateway
that explained the choices available for child maintenance, the
number of parents intending to choose family-based arrangements
reduced by more than a third from 5,540 in August 2013 to 3,590
in March 2014. The Department considered this to be a temporary
phenomenon associated with making the gateway mandatory and expected
the position to change over the next 12 to 15 months.
Recommendation: The Department should monitor
closely the number of parents that choose family-based arrangements,
following the introduction of charging for the statutory scheme,
and maintain regular contact with groups supporting families to
determine whether changes are needed to improve the support available
to parents.
4. The first phase of the scheme was over
budget and late, but it has produced results that are close to
the expected performance levels. The Department's
prudent approach to implementing phase one, particularly its decision
to undertake extra testing and implement the service gradually
in phases, increased the costs of the programme and resulted in
some delays. The Department now expects total costs to be £950
million, some £70 million more than it estimated in 2012,
and the second phase of the scheme was postponed from July 2013
to June 2014. However, the scheme has produced results that are
at, or approaching, expected levels of performance. For example,
accuracy of assessment is 95%, compared with a target of 97%.
Recommendation: The Department should monitor
and manage performance of the scheme, to ensure effective control
of operational costs, delivery of planned savings, and achievement
of expected levels of accuracy and productivity.
5. Delays in setting up the 'data warehouse',
required to close the legacy cases from the previous systems,
have resulted in increased costs to the Department.
The Department is planning to close 800,000 legacy cases at a
cost of £370 million, but will not be able to close its more
complex cases without its 'data warehouse'. This is a database
to allow cases on legacy schemes to be closed, and to improve
management information on all schemes. The 'data warehouse' is
several months behind schedule and much of its functionality remains
undelivered. The Department is still uncertain about when it would
be fully operational. The Department has developed contingency
solutions to address this, which it stated are straightforward,
and which are scheduled to end by June 2016. The Department was
confident that the 'data warehouse' would be ready by this time,
to close the complex cases, but it acknowledged that significant
costs would be involved if it had to continue to operate legacy
systems beyond this date.
Recommendation: The Department should be
transparent about the progress of case closure, ensure that it
has the necessary systems in place by the time it closes complex
cases, and monitor the performance of its contingency arrangements
in the meantime.
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