Child Support Agency (Hansard, 9 June 1998)

§ Mr. Keith Bradley

One of our key aims for the Child Support Agency is to ensure that more non-resident parents pay the maintenance they owe. We are looking closely at all aspects of the Child Support scheme to see where improvements can be made and we aim to bring forward a consultation document on our proposals later this year.

The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mrs. Faith Boardman. She will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Mrs. Faith Boardman to Mr. David Rendel, dated 5 June 1998: I am replying to your Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the Child Support Agency. I cannot provide precisely all the information that you have requested, but have provided as much as possible from the most recent information available. The Department of Social Security Analytical Services Division publish quarterly a summary of statistics relating to child support; the last report was published on 14 May 1998 and showed that nationally, 41% of non-resident parents were fully compliant, 29% were partially compliant and 30% were nil compliant. The full report is available in the House of Commons library. Analytical Services Division have provided details on a regional basis for Great Britain in relation to nil compliant cases and this information is shown in the table attached. Where the Agency has taken-on cases, the length of time taken to complete a maintenance assessment is measured, and cases which exceed 52 weeks are considered to be a backlog; this backlog currently stands at approximately 110,000 down from 225,000 at 31 March 1997. The Agency has developed and implemented a strategy for meeting its undertaking to clear this backlog. All Business Units have put in place operational plans which will guide them towards the achievement of our objective of clearing the backlog by 31 March 1999. The amount of child support maintenance debt outstanding at the 3l May 1998, was £731,620,185.51. The Agency undertakes a Debt Analysis exercise at the end of each financial year. The analysis is performed at Agency level and cannot be broken down into regions within the United Kingdom. The Debt Analysis exercise for 1996/97 indicated that the percentage of full maintenance assessment debt regarded as probably uncollectable was 38%. Similar analysis is being carried out for 1997/98 and the results will be published in the Agency's 1997/98 Annual Report and Accounts in July 1998, in a format which will satisfy the Committee of Public Accounts recommendation that the Agency " … examine the scope for eliminating a significant amount of this debt, since it is unlikely ever to be collected …". 554W The Agency measures the accuracy of maintenance assessments against targets set by the Secretary of State. For 1997/98, the target was for the cash value of all maintenance assessments checked in the year to be correct in at least 85% of cases. The Agency met this target scoring an accuracy rate of 86%. In 1998–99, the Agency is measuring the accuracy more stringently be examining the last full assessment rather than just the last work carried out, which could have been a simplified review not requiring a full assessment. The revised methodology is similar to that used by the National Audit Office. The checks will be more reliable, measuring accuracy of assessments in earlier years as well as more recent changes to assessments. However, this may result in a larger number of inaccurate assessments being identified in the short term and as a result the accuracy target is lower for 1998–99, and requires the cash value of all assessments checked in the year to be correct in at least 75% of cases. The Agency will be looking to improve on the accuracy target in 1999–2000 and beyond. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General to the House of Commons which was published as part of the Agency's Annual Report for 1996/97 noted that when examining non-resident parents' maintenance balances, National Audit Office staff had identified errors in 85% of the cases examined. I am not able to update this assessment which was based on a sample of cases going back to the start of the Agency, but it is a matter of public record that during its first two years the Agency frequently made errors when assessing maintenance. We recognise the legacy of this problem and aim to tackle this by getting cases right first time and will review older cases as the opportunity arises, for example when a periodic review is being carried out. We estimate that by the end of 1998/99 we will have had the chance in our normal course of work and through periodic reviews to look at many of those individual accounts which stem from the start of the Agency. I hope this is helpful.

Rates of nil compliance in the quarter to 28 February 1998, for Full Maintenance Assessment cases by region of the Parent with Care (Information taken from ASD 5% scan of Child Support Computer System at 28 February 1998)
Region	Percentage
North-east	22.8
North-west	27.2
Merseyside	26.6
Yorks & Humberside	32.6
East Midlands	31.8
West Midlands	31.8
Eastern	31.2
London	31.4
South-east	28.1
South-west	28.7
Wales	25.0
Scotland	26.9
Great Britain	30.3