Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 25
25
There are several reasons why enforcing payments can take a long time.
Conclusion
There are several reasons why enforcing payments can take a long time. For example, the Department can be slow to start civil enforcement activity where other attempts at collection have failed. As at September 2021, only around one-third (34%) of paying parents on Collect & Pay with ongoing maintenance arrangements who had not contributed for more than six months were being dealt with by the Department’s Enforcement Team.51 Many of the Department’s enforcement processes are set out in legislation and require action by external bodies. The Department told us that it wanted to further speed up its enforcement processes, but that “some of the points in the process are in other people’s hands.” For example, it explained that it needed to secure a liability order to move forward with civil enforcement and that in order to do this, it needed to secure court time. The Department confirmed that it was working towards ironing out these systemic delays.52 However, the NAO found that enforcement of arrears does not ensure ongoing compliance, and that even where CMS enforces the collection of unpaid maintenance the Paying Parents miss further payments in the meantime and end up owing £400 more than before the enforcement action started.53
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
6. PAC conclusion: The Department is too slow to take effective enforcement action, leaving children without maintenance for too long and allowing child maintenance arrears to grow. 6. PAC recommendation: The Department should, within one year: • conduct operational and user research to better understand how customers progress through its collection and enforcement process, to identify any operational or legislative barriers to reducing the overall time to getting payments; and • in consultation with stakeholders, develop a strategy to tackle rising unpaid maintenance debt on its 2012 scheme, drawing on lessons learned from its experience of reducing CSA arrears, considering key barriers to compliance, such as affordability, and whether a write-off of uncollectable debt would be appropriate. 6.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 6.2 The department continues to complete extensive operational insight and analysis and utilises its existing user research. This provides insight into any barriers to compliance enabling the department to identify further opportunities for improvements for customers. 6.3 As reported by the National Audit Office, the department has improved its collection and enforcement activities and the amount it collects through Collect & Pay enforcing payments has increased. The department recognises the challenges it faces in removing some of the barriers to compliance and therefore continually reviews and evolves its compliance strategy. 6.4 Through its Transformation Programme the department will be developing its use of risk and intelligence within its business processes. This will involve improving the quality and the use of data to develop and deploy both tactical solutions for improving and accelerating day to day compliance and in helping to inform and develop a more efficient organisational and process design. This will link closely with embedding sustainable arrangements that take a balanced account of the customer’s circumstances. 6.5 The department is aware that the effectiveness of its compliance strategy is heavily influenced by existing legal processes and the current dependency on third parties (such as MoJ and Bailiffs). It is currently reviewing these dependencies and will provide an implementation approach for any changes by Summer 2023. 6.6 Through its Transformation Programme, the department is reviewing its internal processes and current organisational design structure to ensure cases can be transitioned through the customer journey more efficiently. 6.7 In addition, current policy work relating to ‘Transformation’ includes the drafting of regulations to extinguish low level debt (where appropriate) and expanding the list of organisations required to comply with requests from CMS for information or evidence.