Child Support Agency

Speech by Annette Brooke MP delivered to Westminster Hall on Wed 26th Oct 2005

The CSA is a failing agency and should be scrapped say MPs

Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) on securing a debate on an issue that is of importance to every MP. I also have an enormous postbag on the subject and agree that the CSA is a shambolic institution. I have spoken at length on the subject and want to concentrate on one case: my constituent versus the CSA computer. I concur with all the other points that have been raised and have letters on those in my mailbag.

This particular case and some of the written communications to which it has given rise—I have some of them here—create the impression of a body that is completely out of touch with people and the state in which our constituents find themselves once they are in conflict with the CSA.

My constituent's relationship with the CSA dates back to 1997, but I will not start from then because it would involve a long catalogue of events. For the sake of brevity, I begin in March 2005, when my constituent, out of total frustration—I note how many times that word has been used in this short debate—with the system, asked for her case to be closed. She just could not cope with the stress arising from the catalogue of errors. Her frustration arose from the uncertainty of whether she would receive any payments, which affected her housing benefit and made her situation worse.

At that stage, she was owed £600, and I understand that enforcement action is being taken. Hon. Members should note the language used in a letter to my constituent which arrived in May. It states:

"I have investigated the issues raised within your correspondence and would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the poor level of customer service you have received from the Agency."

So far, so good. It concludes:

"While the new IT system is working well for most clients, there are some, more complex circumstances where we still have difficulties . . . I can confirm your case has been closed as requested with effect from 1 March 2005 but due to a technical fault the system is unable to fully progress your case to closure. All written notifications have been inhibited on your case although this is no guarantee you will not receive any notifications in the future owing to the technical fault. Your case has been referred to the Incident Team to resolve the fault."

I ask hon. Members to consider what it would be like to receive such a letter.

That is not the end of the story because, for really good reasons, my constituent decided to ask for her case to be reopened and initiated a new claim in June 2005. The CSA did not respond. She kept telephoning. She was told that her application had not been received and was not on the system. Eventually, she got a one-to-one meeting—that was quite good really—and she was promised money within a week.

The money did not come within a week. That took us to the end of August. I heard from my constituent on 30 August. Apparently, her ex-partner had paid £50 to the CSA in June, July and August 2005, but the CSA claimed that it was not possible to pass the money on to her given that her case with them was closed. That is quite a problem, involving a closed case and a newly opened case.

It is often said that the fault does not lie with the CSA, but with people not paying money to it. However, in this case, the CSA has the money. It is appalling that it is trapped in the system. The CSA has confirmed to me that it is owed to my constituent, but has said that there is a problem with the computer system. The case was passed to the live service support unit of the CSA and it has been given MP priority.

It is interesting to note that between the closure of the case and now, there have been no changes in the circumstances of my constituent's former partner. Therefore, all the necessary information was on the computer system. One would have thought that there was no need to use a manual system, but the enforcement action for the £600 meant that the newly opened case had to be dealt with manually. However, in my experience, there is no simple way of manually processing applications with the CSA, even though there is with most other organisations.

The MP priority system brought me a letter on 20 October—a high-speed response. It stated that there was a

"a problem of a technical nature"

that was preventing my constituent's case from being progressed. It continued:

"Our technical people are currently working on this and we are awaiting authorisation from them for the case to be progressed clerically. Once authorisation has been received the case will be prepared for submission to a specialist clerical team. The average time being taken for a case to be completed is 18 weeks."

So that is my priority case as an MP. It started in June and it is now the end of October, but my constituent has not gotten a penny and the CSA has her money.

What is the impact on our constituents? Mine has to work really long hours to make up the money due to her, and the stress affects her physical and mental well-being. I am angry that the Government are party to a system that shows no understanding of how people on relatively low incomes live. For a mother bringing up two children, and working for a relatively low rate of pay, £150 is a great deal of money. It is the difference between the children having the right shoes for school and them wearing trainers, which are not acceptable to the school.

People on relatively low incomes budget week to week. It is unacceptable that they receive letters saying that a clerical team will deal with their problem in three months' time. Like the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), I feel sorry for the front-line staff who have to work under this dreadful system. Someone must be responsible for the chaos. Is it the people who were involved in drawing up the specifications for the computer system? Or is the problem down to some of the more general principles behind the Child Support Agency? We need something that relates to people, because we are all here to help them, but the system actually makes life worse for people who are already in difficult circumstances.

My constituent concludes:

"God help my deprived children and others who rely on the CSA".

The CSA in its current form is past praying for, and I look forward to the Minister offering us some hope for the future.