Child Support Agency quarterly summary of statistics

24 Oct 2006 10:33 AM

Coverage: Great Britain (unless otherwise stated)

Theme: Social and Welfare

Introduction

The CSA is responsible for tracing Non-resident Parents, working out how much maintenance they should pay, and can collect and enforce payments. This edition of the CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics contains a number of revisions to historical figures published in earlier editions. For further details see the Notes to Editors.

Main Findings

* The mean average processing time for new scheme applications cleared in September 2006 was 242 days (35 weeks), with 50% cleared in 91 days (13 weeks) or less. The mean average age for uncleared cases was 494 days (71 weeks). A comprehensive definition of a clearance is provided within the QSS itself.

* In the quarter ending September 2006, on average, where maintenance had been paid via the collection service, the Agency had collected 88% of the amount due. Performance in this area has been broadly flat for the last year.

* At the end of the 2005/6 financial year, the total amount of outstanding money owed by non resident parents to parents with care stood at £3.5 billion, whilst this represented an increase of £242 million on 2004/5, the average monthly rate of increase has slowed from £23 million to £20 million.

* At the end of September 2006, the average new scheme maintenance calculation was £23 per week (including zero calculations), and that for old scheme assessments was £22.

* On average, in the 12 months ending September 2006, 81% of new scheme cases and 84% of old scheme cases were found to be accurate to the nearest penny, up from 76% and 78% respectively in the year ending September 2005.

* Between April 2006 and August 2006, the Agency had answered 97% of telephone calls available to staff to answer, with an average waiting time of 25 seconds, up from 91% answered with a waiting time of 59 seconds in the year ending March 2006.

* In August 2006, there were 11,500 staff employed by the CSA, with an average of 12.1 days sickness absence in the previous 12 months, down from 14.2 days in August 2005. The staff turnover rate in the year ending May 2006 was 14%, down from 17% a year earlier. This includes staff who left the Agency to move to a post within the DWP as well as those who left the Agency for posts outside the department.

Latest statistical data available from
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/csa.asp

Notes to Editors

Launched on 5 April 1993, the Child Support Agency (CSA) is an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, set up to implement the Child Support Act 1991 and operate the new child maintenance system in Great Britain (there is a separate but parallel agency for Northern Ireland). The CSA is responsible for tracing Non-resident Parents, working out how much maintenance they should pay, and can collect and enforce payments

Prior to 3 March 2003, CSA stored information on the Child Support Computer System (CSCS). Since the introduction of the new computer system (CS2) on that date, all new Child Support applications have been assessed under a new scheme on the new system

Revisions to previous releases

This edition of the CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics contains a number of revisions to historical figures published in earlier editions. There are two reasons for these revisions:

DWP have recently received some improved data on work passing through the early stages of the case building process. The earlier data overstated the number of outstanding applications received via Jobcentre Plus by around 10 thousand. This change has been applied across the time series.

There have been a variety of minor methodological improvements and corrections. For example :

* Inclusion of CSCS Interim Maintenance Assessment cases which were previously thought to be closed but have financial activity (i.e. charges or receipts). This affects every month from May 2001 onwards; however the number of cases added falls gradually throughout the period from 10 thousand in May 2001 to 3 thousand in September 2006.

* Corrections to the Cash Compliance and Arrears tables (Tables 11 and 12). This affects a small number of months by at most two percentage points.

* Corrections to the Case Compliance table (Table 7.1). Maintenance Direct cases on CSCS were incorrectly included. This table now excludes all maintenance direct cases at the end of the month shown. Differences are small.

* Better address data and postcode matching provides improved accuracy across the geographical tables (Tables 25-29). Differences are small.

New Tables

As a promised in the DWP response to the CSA National Statistics Consultation, this edition of the CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS) contains a number of new tables. These tables relate to:

* CSA Administration costs (Table 19.4)
* converted cases (Table 2.5)
* reasons for new scheme case closure (Table 2.4)
* compliance tables which distinguish between regular and arrears accounts (Table 11)
* Uncleared work by Parliamentary Constituency of Parent/Person with Care (Table 27)
* Living distance apart of PWC and NRP (Table 29)
* NRP employment status (Table 30)

We also committed to the provision of tables relating to family circumstances, changes of circumstances and NRP income bands in the September QSS. Unfortunately, we been unable to produce these in time for this publication due to difficulties in establishing a consistent time series with supporting contextual information to allow for robust comparison. We will aim to ensure their inclusion in the December QSS, due for release in January 2007. Similarly, we have been unable to obtain comprehensive figures on compensation payments. We will aim to provide suitable information in the December QSS, due for release in January 2007.

The National Statistics consultation response can be found at: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/child_support/CSA_External_consultation_response_draft10.pdf

The Child Support Agency announced new client service standards in April 2006 and performance information is included for two of the service standard areas (on telephony and appeals). Work is ongoing to improve management information against the other service standards, and will be published in the future.

The new tables can be found with the usual tables at:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/csa.asp

Issued by:
Information Directorate
Department for Work and Pensions

Telephone:
Public Enquiries: 0207 712 2171

Website:
www.dwp.gov.uk

Statistician:
Stuart Grant
Information Directorate
Department for Work and Pensions
BP 5201
Benton Park View
Benton Park Road
Longbenton
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
NE98 1YX

Next Publication: January 2007