Child Support Agency (Hansard, 20 November 1997)

§ Mr. Keith Bradley

We expect the Child Support Agency to provide an efficient and effective service to all its clients throughout the child support assessment process. We are looking for substantial and sustained operational improvements from the Agency, in particular on getting more maintenance paid, reducing the backlog and improving customer service.

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 Faith Boardman to Mr. Howard Flight, dated 19 November 1997I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about telephone conversations, interviews and the income of parents without care (normally known as absent parents) dealt with by the Child Support Agency. It may be helpful to outline the current situation with regard to telephone conversations and face to face interviews. When contact is made via the telephone, Agency staff are instructed to make a note of the relevant parts of the discussion. This can be done in one of two ways, either by recording details on the Child Support Computer System or by making a clerical note. Feedback from customers has made it clear that the majority of our customers prefer to be contacted by telephone. The Agency is currently piloting a scheme called Positive Customer Contact which maximises the use of the telephone to obtain information and to establish closer links with customers. Staff are instructed to maintain a brief but accurate record of the important elements of the conversation, namely the 290W information which enables a case to be progressed. Details of telephone conversations are not recorded by the Agency in any other way. The second point you raised concerns face-to-face interviews. Although most contact between the Agency and its customers is by means of written correspondence or via the telephone there is sometimes a need to carry out face-to-face interviews. A customer can also repeat an interview, and where this is the best way to progress a case an interview will be arranged. Such interviews normally take place in DSS local offices. The third point you raised concerned the calculation of income of the parent who does not have primary care. The income of the absent parent consists of the total income from all sources available to that parent as defined in the Child Support Maintenance Assessments and Special Cases Regulations 1992. This includes earnings from employment or self-employment (less tax, national insurance contributions and 50% of contributions made to an occupation or personal pension scheme); some social security benefits; income from capital; income from boarders or tenants; income from occupational or personal pension schemes; training allowances and student grants (providing the student has some other form of income in addition to the grant). Certain types of income are subject to a partial disregard, for example £10 per week of a War Disablement or War Widows Pension is disregarded. For an employed parent the average income derived from earnings can be calculated or estimated. The Agency will look at earnings received in a period beginning up to eight weeks before the Agency receives a maintenance application form or issues a maintenance enquiry form and ending with the date the assessment is made. If evidence is incomplete or considered to be unrepresentative of the normal earnings, the Agency will estimate the amount of earnings. Any payments of bonus, commission, or profit related pay are averaged over the year. Payments for expenses are ignored, provided they are necessarily incurred in carrying out the employment. The calculation of earnings for the self-employed is intended to reflect the flow of cash through the business and the money available to the parent for the payment of child maintenance. The calculation reflects the difference between earnings from the gross receipts and expenses incurred in the running of the business. The assessment period is either a year, the period of self employment if less than a year, or a period that provides a more reliable calculation. However, the parent may provide the latest profit and loss account for a period between 6 and 15 months. Provided that period ends within 24 months of the date the maintenance enquiry form is sent, then earnings will be averaged over the period of the accounts. A partner's income is calculated in the same way as a parent's. An absent parent's partner has no liability to maintain children from the absent parent's previous relationship, but her income is included in the calculation of disposable income (this is the total income of the household) which is required for consideration of the protected income provisions (this is an amount to ensure that the absent parent's household is left with sufficient disposable income, after paying maintenance, to meet their day to day needs and that of any new family. We are currently examining all aspects of the work of the Child Support Agency with a view to ensuring that the Agency provides a consistent, fair and efficient service to all its customers. I hope this is helpful.