Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Ninth Report - Child Maintenance
Public Accounts Committee
HC 255
Published 22 June 2022
Recommendations
2
Rejected
The Department has displayed insufficient curiosity around the needs of some of the most vulnerable...
Recommendation
The Department has displayed insufficient curiosity around the needs of some of the most vulnerable separated families and their children. Take-up of the Department’s CMS scheme is substantially lower than it expected. An estimated 18% of separated families used the …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, says it has improved diversity information collection, undertakes surveys in multiple languages, and sees no need for new research given the increase in demand for CMS.
HM Treasury
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3
Accepted
The Department’s system of child maintenance is not designed to protect those subject to domestic...
Recommendation
The Department’s system of child maintenance is not designed to protect those subject to domestic abuse or coercive control. The Department designed the current child maintenance system to emphasise collaboration between parents, with the CMS available as a voluntary safety …
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Government Response Summary
The department has robust processes and training in place for identifying victims of domestic abuse. They will also assess the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Statutory Guidance and adapt their Transformation Programme to incorporate further support and communications with domestic abuse survivors, with considerations for more comprehensive conversations when cases close.
HM Treasury
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4
Rejected
The Department has not taken responsibility for detecting child maintenance fraud, instead shifting this responsibility...
Recommendation
The Department has not taken responsibility for detecting child maintenance fraud, instead shifting this responsibility onto its customers. The Department asserts that it does not treat tackling child maintenance fraud, where children often suffer as the end user, with any …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation to take responsibility for detecting child maintenance fraud, stating it already has proportionate and cost-effective controls and a fraud strategy in place.
HM Treasury
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5
Rejected
The Department is too willing to blame low levels of customer satisfaction on CMS customers...
Recommendation
The Department is too willing to blame low levels of customer satisfaction on CMS customers being difficult to please, despite its own systemic customer service failings. It is disheartening that customer satisfaction is no better now than it was under …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees, stating that the Customer Experience Directorate actively invests in reviewing cases upheld by the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) to identify and implement service improvements, and will continue to utilize existing ICE publications to inform lessons learned.
HM Treasury
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6
Accepted
The Department is too slow to take effective enforcement action, leaving children without maintenance for...
Recommendation
The Department is too slow to take effective enforcement action, leaving children without maintenance for too long and allowing child maintenance arrears to grow. The Department designed its CMS scheme to encourage parents to use Direct Pay first, and the …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation to conduct research to understand how customers progress through the collection and enforcement process and is already completing insight and analysis and utilising existing user research. It is reviewing its internal processes and current organisational design structure to ensure cases can be transitioned through the customer journey more efficiently.
HM Treasury
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7
Deferred
The Department’s ability to collect child maintenance is limited by the affordability of payments and...
Recommendation
The Department’s ability to collect child maintenance is limited by the affordability of payments and the system risks creating a poverty trap for some Paying Parents. More than two-thirds of Paying Parents on Collect & Pay and over a quarter …
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Government Response Summary
The department cannot set out its plans to review affordability of liabilities as this relies upon a policy decision, but the department is considering its plans and will update the Work and Pensions Committee in due course.
HM Treasury
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8
Rejected
The Department has repeatedly failed to achieve savings targets for the child maintenance scheme over...
Recommendation
The Department has repeatedly failed to achieve savings targets for the child maintenance scheme over the past decade and again risks overpromising on the benefits of its current transformation programme. The Department has reduced the cost to the taxpayer of …
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Government Response Summary
The government disagrees, stating their Transformation Programme introduces changes to improve efficiency and automation. They report performance in Annual Reports and Accounts, and regularly review services and programmes to ensure value for money.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (29)
1
Conclusion
Rejected
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department for Work & Pensions (the Department) about child maintenance in Great Britain.1 We also received and considered written evidence from individuals and organisations from within the sector.
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation, stating that the Department for Work and Pensions (the department) has a clear interest in how child maintenance is integrated into wider government policy, and it intends to continue to discharge this working with other government departments.
9
Conclusion
The Department also told us that some issues identified with the integration of child maintenance were the result of legislation. For example, the rates for calculating child maintenance are outlined in legislation and mean that some paying parents on Universal Credit may see that as their earnings increase the resulting …
10
Conclusion
Take-up of the Department’s CMS scheme is substantially lower than it expected. The Department estimated that 18% of separated families used the CMS scheme in 2019– 20, compared to its expectation of 33% by 2019.14 In 2021, the Department found that 49% of non-resident parents and 35% of parents with …
11
Conclusion
The Department told us that it “absolutely” wanted parents who were not receiving maintenance because the other parent was not willing to pay to feel that they can come to the Child Maintenance Service and that it will support them. It explained that, since closing CSA cases at the end …
12
Conclusion
The Department does not know whether all groups of parents find CMS equally accessible or whether CMS produces different outcomes for different groups. The Department’s research found that low-income families, those with disabilities, and those with higher levels of parental conflict, appear more likely to have no arrangement in place. …
13
Conclusion
The NAO found that parents from some minority groups, such as Black, African, Caribbean or Black British parents, are less likely to use the CMS scheme. However, the Department has not conducted research into why this might be or whether there is any indirect racial discrimination.17 Race is a ‘protected …
14
Conclusion
Customer satisfaction with the CMS is no better than under the old CSA schemes. The Department’s internal survey results show that in the quarter ending December 2019 (before the pandemic), the Department’s customer satisfaction rating was 60%. This is lower than it was when the 2012 scheme was first introduced …
15
Conclusion
The Department’s Customer Charter (the Charter) covers four customer service areas: ‘ease of access’; ‘getting it right’; ‘keeping you informed’; and ‘right treatment’. The NAO found that it is difficult to assess the Department objectively against these areas because the Department has not identified a suite of performance measures, management …
16
Conclusion
The Department received 6,521 complaints about child maintenance (around six for every 1,000 customers) in the year to 30 September 2021. This was considerably down from pre-pandemic levels in line with a general fall in complaints to the Department during the pandemic. Of the 6512 complaints received, the Department upheld …
17
Conclusion
Despite child maintenance having the highest rate of complaints within the Department, the Department upholds a lower proportion of complaints relating to child 21 Qq 124–125; C&AG’s Report, paras 5, 1.14, 3.10 22 C&AG’s Report, para 3.11 and 3.12 23 Q 125 24 C&AG’s Report, Figure 18, para 3.18 25 …
18
Conclusion
The Department designed the current child maintenance system to emphasise collaboration between parents, with the CMS available as a voluntary safety net for those separated parents to choose to use if they decide to.31 Written evidence from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner referred to the Department’s data suggesting “a strong prevalence …
19
Conclusion
Parents can use the child maintenance system to continue to abuse their former partners, for example by withholding payments or access to children. Written evidence from Gingerbread and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner set out that, for survivors of domestic abuse, the CMS may be the safest and only way to …
20
Conclusion
We asked the Department how it ensured that its approach to monitoring child maintenance cases was properly identifying and addressing cases of domestic abuse and coercive control, rather than waiting to be alerted through non-payment or through the receiving parent raising concerns, especially when they might not be in a …
21
Conclusion
The Department told us that it provided specific training for staff to identify domestic abuse and coercive control, and that it could put in place controls to avoid contact with the paying parent (such as non-geographic bank accounts). It explained that it also had a “six-point domestic abuse plan for …
22
Conclusion
The Department’s legislation for child maintenance is designed to encourage parents to use Direct Pay first, but around half of Direct Pay arrangements are either not sustained or not effective. The Department told us that it preferred parents using its CMS to have a Direct Pay arrangement as it believed …
23
Conclusion
We asked the Department why it was taking so long to identify missed payments and transfer customers onto Collect & Pay.47 The Department informs parents that they should get in touch if their Direct Pay arrangement fails but some do not, for example because they are concerned about causing an …
24
Conclusion
The Department has improved its enforcement of maintenance on Collect & Pay arrangements, but many parents receive less than they are entitled to. Compliance rates on Collect & Pay have risen from under one-third (31%) of paying parents contributing more than 90% of ongoing maintenance due in the quarter ending …
25
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 …
26
Conclusion
We asked the Department what use it was making of its enforcement powers.54 Parliament granted the Department additional enforcement powers in December 2018 and July 2019. The Department accepted that it has “a set of enforcement powers that are probably among the strongest in the world”, including the power to …
27
Conclusion
Low-income paying parents are more likely to build up child maintenance arrears than those who are higher paid: 46% of paying parents using the CMS did not earn enough to pay income tax (£12,570 in 2021–22), but these parents represented 62% of those with arrears as at March 2021 .Alongside …
28
Conclusion
We therefore asked the Department about the affordability of payments. The Department explained that its calculations were based on historical income, so “affordability is part of the calculation in that respect”. But it recognised that “the problem then comes when someone’s circumstances change and they no longer have the level …
29
Conclusion
The amount Paying Parents pay is based on a means tested calculation set out in primary legislation. This applies different rates above certain earnings thresholds that is higher for those on higher incomes and a flat rate of £7 a week for those with the lowest income. The Department has …
30
Conclusion
In 2011, the Department announced that it would close the old Child Support Agency (CSA) schemes and introduce the CMS. It decided, based on its analysis, that it would not be value for money to attempt to collect all the unpaid maintenance debt on the CSA schemes. The Department reduced …
31
Conclusion
The Department has no long-term strategy for tackling the growing unpaid maintenance balance under the current CMS scheme. Unpaid maintenance owed to parents on Collect & Pay has increased by more than £1 million per week to a total of £440 million as at October 2021.66 We therefore asked the …
32
Conclusion
The Department has improved the accuracy of its maintenance calculations. The National Audit Office’s estimate of the financial impact of the Department’s errors fell from 2.17% of the monetary value of maintenance in 2015–16 to a record low of 0.65% for 2020–21.71 The Department said that it “would obviously want …
33
Conclusion
The Department refers cases of suspected fraud to its Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) to assess the accuracy of the award. Its FIU detected 1,400 cases involving fraud in 2020–21 and increased the child maintenance owed by £10.9 million.74 The Department relies almost entirely on parents to detect child maintenance fraud. …
34
Conclusion
The Department cannot currently demonstrate that its approach to fraud and error within child maintenance is proportionate as it has not assessed the risk or level of actual fraud and customer error within child maintenance as would be required if it was public expenditure.77 The Department reassured us that, despite …
35
Conclusion
The Department has reduced the gross cost of administering child maintenance by £132 million (27%) from £497 million in 2011–12 to £365 million in 2020–21. In real terms, this is equivalent to a £242 million (40%) reduction at 2020–21 prices. This is broadly in line with the 47% fall in …
36
Conclusion
The Department told us that its Transformation programme should reduce costs and improve payment compliance by digitalising processes and allowing its staff to move from case maintenance into enforcement activities.83 It expected CMS transformation to be complete by financial year 2024–25, at a cost of more than £30 million to …