(CMEC) Child Support Agency marks three years of progress

Strong performance numbers complete the CSA's Operational Improvement Plan as clients praise caseworkers for professional service.

The Child Support Agency has collected or arranged more than £100 million in maintenance in a single month for the first time in its history. The milestone, passed in March 2009, marks a fitting end to the CSA's three-year improvement programme.

Better client service, increased maintenance collections and greater compliance by non-resident parents will enable further progress as child maintenance continues to evolve. The Agency is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, which is developing an entirely new maintenance scheme to replace the two CSA schemes from 2011.

The Operational Improvement Plan was designed to address urgent issues facing the maintenance system as part of a two-stage approach to reform. The second will see more fundamental change with the 'future' maintenance scheme underpinned by new IT systems and improved processes for assessment, collection and enforcement.

Since March 2005:

* Annual child maintenance payments have soared by 42%. £1,132m was collected or arranged by the Agency in the year to March 2009.

* The recovery of maintenance arrears has more than doubled annually to over £158m in 2008/9.

* An additional 218,000 children are benefiting from CSA-arranged maintenance payments.

* The percentage of non-resident parents paying maintenance has increased to 71% from 63% in 2005.

"When we launched the Operational Improvement Plan in 2006, we warned that there would be no quick fixes to serious issues affecting the Agency's performance," said Child Maintenance Commissioner and former CSA Chief Executive Stephen Geraghty. "Thanks to the commitment shown by the Agency's people, I believe that we have started delivering results that instil greater confidence in the child maintenance service. These are firm foundations on which the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission will build as it develops the entirely new maintenance scheme that will replace the CSA's schemes from 2011."

Improving service to clients has been an area of especially strong progress. Uncleared cases - which once stood at 225,000 - have been reduced to less than 50,000 with 82% of new applications cleared within 12 weeks.

Calls to the CSA are now answered promptly with an average waiting time of just 13 seconds.

Steps to connect clients directly to experienced caseworkers have also been paying dividends. Agency people are receiving unsolicited praise from clients, many of whom were disappointed by the CSA in the past.

According to ambulance driver and parent-with-care Claire Anderson, "The CSA has got a lot better since the old days and they are providing a much improved service now. "

The sentiment is echoed by mother-of- three Bridget Carroll who says: "I was expecting the same old incompetence, failure to return phone calls and so on, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find my caseworker Mark Evens informative, calming, patient and understanding".

Speaking about his caseworker at CSA Dudley, father and non-resident parent Michael Bowring adds; "If her appointment is indicative of the sorts of people the CSA are now employing and the changes they are making, then that can only be a very good thing indeed."

The Agency has also renewed its determination to make full use of the powers available to it in order to deliver more money for more children. In one recent case a record-breaking single payment of £57,000 was delivered to a mother in Hertfordshire after the Agency took a legal charge on a property owned by her former husband.

In all, the Agency has taken 120,970 new enforcement actions in the past year, including 68,805 Deduction from Earnings Orders.

The most important change of the past year has been the removal of the compulsion on parents with care claiming benefits to use the CSA. Supported by the Commission's new Child Maintenance Options service, all separated parents are now free to choose the maintenance arrangements that best suit their own circumstances.

This might be a private arrangement agreed between the parties, or an enforceable case brought through the CSA. The change has already reduced the flow of new cases onto the Agency's books, enabling it to prioritise cases requiring active support.

Since its launch, Child Maintenance Options has already facilitated private maintenance arrangements benefiting around 30,000 children. The Commission will continue to promote the service to separating parents during the year to come.