§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will list, for each financial year since the CSA began its operations, how many parents with care have ceased to claim(a) income support, (b) income-based job-seeker's allowance, (c) family credit and (d) disability working allowance as a result of CSA activity; and for each of the above benefits if she will list how many claims ceased because of (i) established benefit fraud, (ii) fraud was suspected but not proved and (iii) the claim ceased, but no reason was investigated for the termination of the claim. [38403]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyThe information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is as follows:
Number of parents with care who have ceased to claim Income Support within four weeks of CSA activity (or eight weeks if the question of the parent with care's requirement to apply for maintenance is under consideration) Number 1993–94 141,000 1994–95 60,226 1995–96 52,848 1996–97 43,658 1997–98 235,588 1Estimated. 2 To the end of February 1998. No information is available about the number of such cases where fraud was involved.
The information requested for parents with care ceasing to claim income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance is not available.
374W
§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much parents with care on income support, whose claims predate April 1993, have(a) not been contacted by the CSA and (b) were contacted and whose case forms part of the CSA backlog; and by how many cases these numbers of claimants have been reduced in the financial year 1997–98.[38404]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyThe 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 Bendel, dated 8 April 1998:
I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about Child Support Agency cases that pre-date April 1993.Some 340,000 cases were deferred in December 1994 where the client was in receipt of Income Support prior to April 1993 and where there had been no Agency contact, and a further 16,000 cases deferred in January-March 1995 where a maintenance application form had been issued before July 1994 and either had not been returned or lacked the necessary information.The Agency recommenced take on of these cases in November 1995, in line with the agreement made with the Secretary of State to recommence take on by December 1995.It is not possible to give an exact figure for the number of deferred cases still outstanding. To obtain this a clerical examination of all the deferred cases would have to be made to find those appropriate for action and this would incur disproportionate cost. In November 1997, it was estimated that the number outstanding had reduced to around 150,000 cases.This reduction is due to a number of reasons. The recommencement of take on mentioned above; also, in some cases where Income Support has ceased and the parent with care has made a fresh application for benefit, the Agency will have become involved and these cases will have been taken on; in other cases the parent with care will have requested that the Agency take on the case and this will have been done; finally, some clients will no longer be claiming Income Support.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 113,000 from 225,000 at 31 March 1997.The Agency has developed and is now implementing a strategy for meeting its undertaking to clear its backlogs. All Business Units have put in place operational plans which will guide them towards the achievement of our stated objective of clearing backlogs by 31 March 1999.The Agency is tackling the backlog of cases. However, we must balance the demands placed on us—to deliver Secretary of State targets, to continue to improve performance and improve customer service—and clearance of the backlogs.I hope this is helpful.
§ Mr. CoxTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many complaints were received in 1997 against the workings of the Child Support Agency. [36701]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyWe expect the Child Support Agency to provide a consistent, fair and efficient service to all its clients throughout the Child Support assessment process. In 1997 the number of complaints recorded by customer service managers of the Child Support Agency was 26,364. Correspondence received by Ministers in this 375W Department and by the Chief Executive of the Agency is not categorised to show the proportion that relates to complaints. However, in 1997 Ministers received 1,179 letters from hon. and right hon. Members concerning the operations of the Child Support Agency. Over the same period the Chief Executive of the Agency received 8,187 such letters.
We are looking closely at all aspects of the Child Support scheme to see where improvements can be made and we expect to bring forward a consultation paper on our proposals later this year.
§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the level of outstanding child maintenance debt, broken down according to debt considered(a) collectable and (b) uncollectable, giving reasons for such categorisation. [38397]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyIt is not right that so many absent fathers should seek to avoid paying the maintenance which their children are due. An extra £15 million is to be invested in the Child Support Agency this year and next, specifically aimed at increasing the amounts of maintenance which are paid.
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. David Rendel, dated 8 April 1998:
I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about child maintenance debt.The amount of child support full maintenance assessment debt outstanding as at the 31 March 1998, was £691,416,505.67. This has increased from the amount reported as outstanding at 31 March 1997 in the Agency's Annual Report and Accounts for 1996–97 which was £513,029,000. The increase in the amount of maintenance debt is largely a result of the rise of the Agency's live and assessed caseload, which has risen from 585,220 at 31 March 1997 to 758,580 at 31 March 1998.The Agency undertakes a Debt Analysis exercise at the end of each financial year, which estimates the collectability of the amounts outstanding. The results as at 31 March 1997 for 1996–97 are shown in the table attached, with definitions of the classifications. A similar exercise will be undertaken for 1997–98 and the results will be published in the Agency's 1997–98 Annual Report and Accounts in July 1998.
I hope this is helpful.
Child support debt: 31 March 1997 Analysis of debt Value of debt(£ million) Percentage of dept Collectable 230.7 44.9 Possibly Uncollectable 81.3 15.9 Probably Uncollectable 195.0 38.0 Deferred debt 6.0 1.2 Total 513.0 100
Collectable—amount outstanding which the Debt Analysis exercise revealed is likely to be collected. This takes into account factors such as regular contact with the absent parent, where regular payments are being made or an arrears agreement has been set up. Possibly Uncollectable—amount outstanding which the Debt Analysis exercise revealed some uncertainty over whether it will be collected. The amounts are considered doubtful where, for example, payments have been infrequent or it has not been possible to establish an arrears agreement or impose a deduction of earnings order.376WProbably Uncollectable—amount outstanding which the Debt Analysis exercise revealed is likely to be very difficult to collect due, for example, to the lack of contact with or the personal circumstances of the absent parent. In many of the latter cases the Agency has suspended recovery action until such time as the individual's circumstances change.Deferred Debt—amount outstanding which the Agency has been able to defer indefinitely, provided absent parents meet certain conditions on payment of regular maintenance and any remaining debt.
§ Mr. RendelTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will list for each CSA division the name and location of each field office, indicating those(a) closed and (b) subject to staff reduction since April 1997; and what plans there are to (i) close and (ii) reduce the number of staff in each remaining office in the financial year 1998–99. [38396]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyWe 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 Mrs. Faith Boardman, the Chief Executive. She will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Faith Boardman to Mr. David Rendel, dated 8 April 1998:
I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about Child Support Agency Field Offices.I have placed a list of Agency offices by region, showing the information you have requested for the period from April 1997 in the library.As I am sure you are aware, the Agency is in the process of reviewing its organisation to improve the service that we deliver. Our plans for re-organising are fully in line with the Government strategy of modernising the delivery of public services and reinforce more effectively parental responsibility. We believe our plans will increase compliance and the regularity of payment of maintenance and play an important part in helping lone parents return to work. It may help to explain some details of our current organisation to show how we plan to improve our accessibility to the public substantially.The Agency currently has approximately 2900 staff working in Field offices throughout the country. In excess of 95% of those staff are engaged on backroom paper processing work so they do not have any face to face contact with the public at all and are no more accessible than those in the major processing centres. The number of staff years which are devoted to face-to-face contact is currently 120 which in many locations equates to fewer than one interview per day. We feel that this is not sufficient. Our restructuring will allow us to offer significantly more face to face contact on a peripatetic basis in a greater range of locations in conjunction with the Benefits Agency (with whom many of our clients are also concerned). At the same time we need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of other forms of contact with customers. We also need to improve our overall cost-efficiency sufficiently to keep pace with increases of 50% in our workloads over the next 3 years.We know that many of our customers who are working prefer to deal with us by 'phone rather than be visited at home or interviewed in one of our offices. We are developing proposals on how we might re-focus our resources to cope with an increasing workload while at the same time seeking to increase and improve both our telephone and our face to face contact. Our current thinking is that we can move processing work into the Child Support Agency Centres and larger local centres to provide economies of scale and much better value for money. Processing paper in small offices is significantly more expensive and our restructuring will allow us to increase our overall range of customer contact, as well as keeping pace with workloads.377WWhile we may not retain a permanent presence at all our present sites we will provide interview facilities at a larger range of local outlets. We know that a proportion of our customers will want to have face to face contact with us for a number of reasons although not necessarily at a DSS office. We are exploring a number of options which will include for example Citizens Advice Bureaux or other Government facilities to increase our accessibility to the public.I hope this is helpful.