Child Support Agency (Hansard, 16 March 1998)

§ Mr. Keith Bradley

We expect the Child Support Agency to provide a consistent, fair and efficient service to all its clients. The Agency is committed to reducing the number of complaints about its handling of cases and improvements in customer service are a high priority.

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 Dr. Ashok Kumar, dated 13 March 1998: I am replying to your Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security about Child Support Agency staffing levels and complaints and queries in the Teesside area. We recently reviewed the organisation of our operations to examine how we could improve the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the Agency. We have concluded that while we need to maintain a geographical presence to provide a direct interface with our public and to present appeals and court cases, the processing desk work which does not involve face to face contact with customers can be done much more efficiently and cost effectively in our large centres, thus releasing resources to deal with backlogs and rising workloads. There are broad proposals only at this stage—a lot of the detail has yet to be fixed—but the main thrust of the strategy is to focus all available resources on improved service delivery. Although we are still engaged in a detailed analysis, it is clear that the size of the field network will reduce significantly over the next three to four years as we transfer the processing work to the centres. The 502W remaining field resources will then be focused specifically on improved face to face contact with customers, often in conjunction with other Agencies. We expect the availability and amount of local face to face contact to increase as a result. This is originally the area on which field staff were intended to concentrate at the start of the Agency; processing work was undertaken as a short-term measure to help the Agency deal with the number of applications it received in the first two years. Currently, there are no plans to increase staff in Teesside. The Agency recognises the need to deal effectively with complaints and queries from all parts of Great Britain. The Teesside area is dealt with by the Scotland and North East Business Unit. In November 1997, the Agency introduced into its 6 Business Units, new procedures, guidance, training and new IT system for dealing with complaints. The Agency has also identified the main reasons for complaint and is taking action to improve these areas. Also the Agency's Business Units adopt a case study approach with cases referred to the Independent Case Examiner whereby the Business Unit Manager and staff involved with the case identify lessons learnt, introduce improvements and good working practices and regularly liaise with the office of the Independent Case Examiner. In line with the Citizen's Charter Unit standards, the Agency aims to acknowledge all complaints within 2 working days of receipt and to issue a full reply within 10 working days of receipt. The Agency is achieving these standards in 84 per cent. of acknowledgments and 55 per cent. of replies. The Agency is currently in the process of producing quality standards that will be applied to all correspondence by Summer 1998. In order to improve the telephone enquiry service, the Agency has increased the staffing levels and extended opening hours of its National Enquiry Line and the Client Help Lines in each of its Business Units to 8.30–6.00 p.m. The help lines deal with over 90 per cent. of calls and the balance are referred to the appropriate business sections for more specialist advice and information. Staff on business sections are also being actively encouraged to deal with customers by telephone in order to deal with more customer business more quickly and effectively and to prevent avoidable enquiries and complaints. By the introduction of more flexible working patterns, the Agency aims to offer its customers a 7 day, 7.00 a.m.–10.00 p.m. service within the next 4 years. Queries and complaints can also be dealt with by personal interview service at our local Field offices. In practice, very few customers use this service. The average number of interviews held per member of field staff in the whole of 1996/7 was approximately 36. By moving processing work to our centres, staff will be able to increase this average and extend our face to face contact with customers. I am very conscious that there are still far too many justified complaints about the standards of basic customer contact and the service we provide, and we recognise that doing things right first time is the key to preventing complaints. We are aware that as we further tackle our backlog of cases from the Agency's first two years, there is potential for the volume of complaints to rise in the short term. In the coming years, I am committed to responding to the needs of our customers by bringing high quality levels of performance to every part of our operation as a matter of routine, thereby reducing the number of complaints received and enhancing the public perception of the Agency. I hope this is helpful.