Child Support Agency (Hansard, 8 May 1998)

§ Mr. Keith Bradley

We are looking closely at all aspects of the Child Support scheme to see where improvements can be made. We aim to bring forward a consultation document on our proposals.

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

Letter from Faith Boardman to Ms Joan Walley, dated 7 May 1998: I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the changes being made to the Child Support Agency organisational structure. I thought it would be helpful to give you an explanation of the changes we are making and why we are unable to suspend our plans pending the review. These changes will result in more jobs overall, much more face-to-face contact, and much more contact being carried out by telephone in a more personalised way than at present. They will also enable backroom paper processing work which involves no direct contact with the public to be done far more cost-effectively than at present; thus releasing funds which will be reinvested in improved service delivery and in keeping up with rising workloads. The results of the on-going reorganisation are already beginning to show. In 1997/98 the backlogs of outstanding cases were more than halved, and the amount of maintenance collected and arranged rose by over one third. I can assure you that Ministers were made aware of the proposals for reorganisation before we embarked on changes and their wishes have been taken fully into account in the further work which we have done since. They require improvements to be made in the Agency's performance in the interval before implementation of any longer-term changes which may result from the review. Ministers have asked me to concentrate on improving the quantity and quality of direct personal contact (both by telephone and face to face); and with seeking ways in which this can be provided actively with other Agencies as a one-stop service for customers. That will be a primary outcome of the reorganisation. The objective is to find means of extending and improving the range and quality of active modem contact with customers whilst at the same time improving the efficiency of the Agency sufficiently to keep pace with the 50% increase in workloads over the next 3 years, and to improve compliance levels. At present, over 95% of the staff years in local offices are not providing any face-to-face contact at all. They are employed on paper processing and are no more accessible to the public than those in the major processing centres. The number of CSA staff years which are devoted to face-to-face contact is currently only 120; in many locations there is less than one interview a day, and there is no Child Support presence in many Benefits Offices. The 529W reorganisation will enable us to more than quadruple the staff years used for face-to-face contact, and increase the locations at which it is available. The Agency's plans for re-organising are fully in line with the Government strategy of modernising the delivery of public services. Many of the changes directly reflect the concerns expressed about accessibility and customer service during the recent discussion sessions which I have held with MPs and their support staff. As part of that, the Agency has looked at the whole range of ways in which it contacts its customers. Until this year that has been predominantly by paper which has been consistently criticised as too complex and impersonal. I am quite convinced of the need for much increased face-to-face contact, not least because of its effectiveness in reducing the incidence of fraud, improving the explanations available to customers, and improving their compliance and co-operation. The reorganisation will significantly increase the availability of local face-to-face contact in a number of ways. As part of their wider strategy to improve face-to-face contact with DSS customers, the Government announced last year that CSA would be working more closely with their colleagues in the Benefits Agency which will provide customers with a one stop service. From I April 1998, Benefits Agency staff are interviewing and assisting all new Income Support parents with care to complete their maintenance application form, where appropriate. Pilot studies have shown this to be both very cost effective and welcomed by individual customers. 75% of our parents with care will be interviewed at the time when they first come into contact with child support and most need information and help. Customers will have to provide information only once, thus reducing overlap and repetition of work. So you can see that for many customers there will be a noticeable improvement in the face-to-face contact without retaining a separate, duplicate CSA presence. Together with BA we will be looking to see how far we can extend this joint approach for parents with care. Restructuring will allow CSA to offer significantly more face to face contact on a peripatetic basis, in a greater range of locations which we hope in future will also include for example, CAB premises. The CSA will then be able to concentrate on improving the service to new absent parents, by telephoning them at an early stage and, where necessary, offering individuals with particular problems an interview to ensure that information is gathered more quickly and that fewer absent parents begin with significant arrears. As well as improving customer service there are sound resourcing reasons to support the re-organisation. Most of the current sites are very small and inflexible and impose considerable extra cost. Many offices have very few staff. For example, there are a number of offices with as few as four staff. It only takes one person to be on holiday and another to be ill and the effectiveness of the office is immediately reduced by 50%. In terms of accommodation alone, up to £8m will be released to be reinvested in better telephone services and more jobs to keep up with rising workloads and to finish clearing the backlogs. Conversely, the centres provide significant economies of scale for processing paper and (with the reinvestment of such efficiency savings and the introduction of flexible working patterns) will he able to accommodate in excess of 1200 staff during the working day. Telephone availability to the public at the centres has already been extended from 9am to 5pm on Monday to Friday, initially to 8am up to 9pm and in the near future to weekends. That will allow CSA to be contacted by absent parents in particular in the privacy of their own homes rather than during the day when they are at work. And it will release local resources to provide much more face-to-face contact where that is needed. Finally, I want to stress that we are making every effort to ensure that individual staff in the field will be taken care of and found suitable alternative work in their location. The movement of work will not take place overnight. Moving the backroom paper processing work which does not require face-to-face contact will be done in conjunction with improvements to face-to-face contact; to CSA's telephone service; and, with an increase in the staff resources and hours in the centres. Every support will be given to ensure that field staff are provided with alternatives and we certainly have no plans to make any member of staff redundant. The Agency is already 530W in touch with the Benefits Agency and Employment Services who will have suitable vacancies in many areas over the next 2 years. Some field staff will be able to move with the paper work to the existing centre; and the Agency will be establishing a number of intermediate sized satellite centres which will provide further opportunities for staff in other areas. Overall, the changes will result in more jobs (but in different locations); and enable us to provide both a more cost-efficient and accessible service. Throughout the period the Agency will continue to report regularly to Ministers and consult customer representative groups at both national and local levels to ensure that service standards are improved.