PAC Report on CSA: the lessons must be learned says One Parent Families|Gingerbread

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05/07/07 Today's report from the Public Accounts Committee is a searing account of the failure of the 2003 reforms of the Child Support Agency, exposing the fact that the scheme went ahead despite warnings of 14 critical defects in the IT system; huge backlogs of cases built up as a result; and debt enforcement was neglected to the extent that only 8 per cent of cases in arrears ever reached the enforcement teams. Today over £3.5 billion is owed in child maintenance arrears.

"At a time when the Government's plans for a new child support scheme have just reached Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee's report on the last major reforms in 2003 is a timely - and devastating - reminder of lessons to be learned" says Chris Pond, Chief Executive of One Parent Families|Gingerbread.

"Those lessons include the crucial importance of having competent senior people in charge who are tough and realistic about what is deliverable, right from the start; the need to have IT underpinning the system which is fully tested and demonstrably working before the scheme goes 'live'; and an understanding that debt collection is a fundamental part of any child support scheme and must be built in - from the word go.

"Lone parents and their children have been badly let down in the past. Only a third of lone parents receive any maintenance at all. For the sake of the children who have lost out, it must not be allowed to happen again."

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