| |
Compelling evidence - speaking to Parliament on the Child Support Agency
|
|
| |
Last Autumn Nancy Lombard, a PhD student with a young son, travelled to London at our invitation to give evidence in Parliament on the Child Support Agency. Jane Ahrends talked to her about the experience.
It was a curious sight. Little Dylan Lombard, aged 14 months, powering himself on his hands and knees, up and down the carpeted corridors of Parliament, delighting in the space he was in, its free-run, the glass surfaces he could explore - patting them with a small, flat hand - the policemen who were stationed along his route and stooped to accept his offer of a toy truck, rolling it forward for him to hurry after.
Dylan seemed to challenge any air of sobriety in Parliament. He was there, last October, with his mother Nancy, a single parent from Glasgow who had agreed to give evidence with us to a House of Commons Select Committee hearing on the performance of the Child Support Agency. Nancy and Dylan were the most powerful evidence the Committee encountered.
Opening the hearing in a small room, with eight MPs seated in a horseshoe format, Committee Chairman Archie Kirkwood welcomed the 'young member of the Lombard family' to the proceedings. Dylan sat with me at the back for a while, leaving Nancy free to answer MPs' queries.
She told them about the 14 months she'd spent trying to get Dylan's child maintenance from the Agency. About how she was a new case, within a 'reformed' agency. The phone calls she'd made to the agency, twice a week, each one lasting at least 20 minutes. Worrying about the phone bill, but phoning and phoning. Always speaking to someone different. And getting different information.
First being told that she wasn't entitled to anything because Dylan's father was a student. Pointing out that he earned nearly £30,000. 'Then', she told the MPs, 'someone on the off chance that I spoke to said: actually you are right. Maybe we should look into that.'
Then being told that Dylan's father had refused to pay. 'Which brought a whole lot of personal issues to bear for me. I panicked and thought that we would never get any money. Then they said: 'Oh, actually, no, it's a problem with the computer. He has paid and it's here.'
But that was the first time. Then the second time that happened and we did not get any money, I spoke to over ten people and said: 'Look, last time you said that he hadn't paid and then you gave me the money. Can you check that this is not the case?' I said that each week to each person I spoke to. They said: 'No, he's definitely, definitely not paid. He's not paid.' They told me that for five months and then they rang me up in September and said: 'He has paid and we've got all the money in our bank. He's paid every month on the dot.'
You could have heard a pin drop. It was, Archie Kirkwood later said, 'the most compelling piece of evidence this Committee has had for a long time'.
And it was powerful for Nancy too. 'I was overwhelmed by a sense of having been listened to. Afterwards
I felt elated. And the MPs were so welcoming of Dylan. I think he had an impact. His presence brought it home.
I wanted to give evidence not just for me but for the many lone parents having problems with the Agency. I wanted the MPs to learn from it.'
If Nancy's testimony was politically effective, it was also personally a kind of triumph. The trip to London reminded her of a period two years earlier when, living and working in the city, she had found herself unexpectedly pregnant. She'd been single and anxious. Now she was facing the memories and returning excited by the prospect of her Committee appearance and, in many ways, strengthened by having become a mother.
From the start Nancy had wanted the CSA to act as a buffer between her and Dylan's father. But it's ineptitude kept forcing her to remain involved in his affairs - to talk about him, frequently, to the Agency. Until it got sorted, she couldn't box off that part of her history. Regular child maintenance started arriving from the Agency just before her Committee appearance:
'Now that it's resolved, I've been able to move on', she says. And, perhaps, giving evidence to the Committee - and the trip to London - further sealed the closure.
Life on her own with Dylan isn't easy. Money is tight and she worries about her responsibility for him. 'It's an uphill struggle but I have never for one moment regretted having Dylan. He has made me realise that you don't know what's going to happen. He's always at an exciting stage and you've got so much to enjoy. He has made me more focused. We are happy. '
For full evidence of the hearing go to www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmworpen/44/4101301.htm
|
...Back to previous page
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
