By Nick Heath, 22 February 2008 16:52
NEWS
The government has admitted it will not finish inputting all child-maintenance-claim cases onto the new Child Support Agency (CSA) computer system until 2013 - a decade after it was built.
The agency's CS2 computer system, which was built by EDS, has been plagued with technical problems since it was launched in 2003, with latest figures estimating it will have cost £1.1bn to implement.
Now - after system faults led the government to suspend bulk updates - work and pensions minister James Plaskitt said mass updates to the CS2 system will not resume until 2010 and it is likely to take three years to add every case.
For years, bugs in CS2 have prevented the transfer of cases from the old system and thousands of cases required manual intervention to unlock them after becoming "stuck".
Delays in processing claims meant that in 2006 there was still £3.5bn of outstanding maintenance payments to be collected, with only one in three parents receiving any payment.
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The CSA was branded one of the "worst public administration scandals in modern times" by MPs in 2006 and was axed following a review by Sir David Henshaw.
Henshaw's report said a new organisation should be established to start from scratch and not be contaminated with system difficulties from the past.
The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill sets out proposals for a new system of child maintenance to be in place by 2010.
In his written answer to Parliament, Plaskitt said: "By the end of 2008, parents will have an option to agree arrangements between themselves and move into voluntary maintenance arrangements, no one will be compelled to stay in either scheme."
He added: "For those who choose to remain with the commission and the new system of child maintenance we expect the case transfer process to start in 2010 and take around three years.
"During this period, parents will continue to have the opportunity to move to their own arrangements or, for those parents who are satisfied with their existing arrangements to continue with them, supported by a new simple cash transfer service based on the success of the current maintenance direct option."
The Department for Work and Pensions failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Nick Langford
Can we end this myth that the CSA has been scrapped? The CSA will continue, under the same legislation in the same offices, with the same chief executive. It gets a change of name (and no doubt a hugely expensive new corporate ID) and sections 6 and 46 of the Child Support Act will be repealed. And that's about it.
2. Richard Davies
Because the systems are so poor I reckon they will be hoping that most people will go into arrangements that don't involve the government purely because it means that they might at least get something!
Everything about the government is self service nowadays! Pay more tax than ever and do everything yourself.
How long before we empty our own bins and perform our own NHS operations! There will be a 19" LCD with a face telling you what to do step by step!!!
3. Chris Goodman
Before the CSA was introduced to reduce the costs of divorce and maintenance cases before the Courts ......... !!!
Things were settled sensibly and the judicial decisions were made with common sense and were legally binding.
And, by and large, it worked.
So if we scrapped the CSA completely and sacked all the staff from top to bottom - and added a few more judges and their support staff, we would actually get results at must less cost.