CSA fails to collect £3.5 billion - Annette Brooke

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 30th Jun 2006

Local MP Annette Brooke responded to the National Audit Office report on the Child Support Agency today:

"The reform of the Child Support Agency in 2003 has been a complete failure. It ranks amongst the worst public administration scandals in modern times. And, all over the country, single parents and their children are suffering as a result.

"Ignoring ample warnings, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Child Support Agency and IT contractor EDS introduced a large, complex IT system at the same time as restructuring the Agency. The new system was brought in and, as night follows day, stumbled and now has enormous operational difficulties.

"The facts almost beggar belief. The Agency has failed to collect £3.5 billion of maintenance. Where the Agency does collect maintenance, it costs 70p to collect each £1. It takes the Agency on average nearly nine months to process an application for maintenance. And over a third of a million parents are waiting to hear the outcome of their applications. The reformed programme is simply performing worse than the crumbling system it replaced. And the total cost of these reforms is set to climb to almost £800 million by 2010.

"To try and drag the Agency out of this mess, the Government has unveiled another new plan at a cost of £320 million. And there is a review underway by Sir David Henshaw, which is expected to call for a major redesign of the child support system - three years after the last reforms.

"I just hope that lessons have been learned and that, in future, the child support system is better managed and helps to ease some of the stress on the families who have already put up with too much from this shambolic agency."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

National Audit Office report: Child Support Agency - implementation of the child support reforms

Annette Brooke MP is a member of the Public Accounts Committee