MPs tire of IT failings
Kablenet.com
Published: 27 Jan 2005 11:45 GMT
The government should put together a new strategy for the Child Support Agency (CSA) which could include options for scrapping it as a result of ongoing IT failures, according to a parliamentary report issued on 26 January, 2005.
MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee have called on ministers to tell the truth about the CSA's failing IT systems and announce targets for transferring cases across from old databases.
Inadequate IT systems are to blame for many of the problems at the CSA, says the committee. It wants a detailed strategy for the agency, including an abandonment option to be made available to parliament before Easter.
The committee also wants the National Audit Office to investigate the background to the CSA's contract with EDS, and called for a debate in parliament.
Sir Archy Kirkwood, who chairs the committee, said: "The CSA is operating on borrowed time. Rapid, radical action is needed if the department is to deliver a service that children deserve. If the agency cannot be rescued, then it must be replaced."
Liberal Democrat shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb said the report reinforces the view that the CSA should be scrapped.
"The Inland Revenue already holds information about family incomes and children so could easily take over the assessment of child maintenance," he said. "The Inland Revenue would also be far more effective than the CSA at collecting maintenance."
The CSA was set up in 1993 to assess and collect child maintenance payments to single parents. The agency's IT systems, supplied by EDS at cost of £456m, have been unreliable and resulted in a poor service to parents.
One parent told the committee: "I rang twice a week for 14 months, each phone call being may be 20 minutes or half an hour… no one will ever ring you back, but you are always encouraged to ring back later, which increases your phone bill."
The agency is dealing with cases involving 1.4 million children. Its old computer system has a caseload of just over one million children, while a new system (CS2) intended to improve case handling contains a mere 330,000 cases. Nearly a quarter of a million cases have yet to be processed and a substantial backlog is building up.
Doug Smith, the CSA's chief executive, resigned in November 2004, after admitting that he was "seriously disappointed" with the operation of the new computer system during its first 18 months.
The introduction of CS2 is "yet another episode in the continuing saga of IT failures within government in general and the Department of Work and Pensions specifically", says the report.
The MPs conclude that it could take a further five years for the CSA to deliver the full functionality and performance that parliament expected to be in place by 2001.
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