Mr J's complaint about the Child Support Agency
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The Child Support Agency caused Mr J distress, affecting his relationship with his family and partner, because they failed to remove his details from their computer system when they found that he was not the man they were looking for. They failed to ‘put things right’ fully for more than four years.
Background to the complaint
In August 2003 the Child Support Agency (the Agency) received a maintenance application form. In October the Agency sent Mr J a maintenance enquiry form, believing him to be the non-resident parent. (In tracing the non-resident parent the Agency apparently chose an ‘incorrect entry’ and wrongly identified Mr J.) Mr J did not know and had not had a relationship with the person with whom the Agency claimed he had had a child. He telephoned the Agency and was assured they would put things right. Despite that, the Agency asked Mr J’s employer about his earnings and issued a child support maintenance calculation.
In December 2003 the Agency confirmed that Mr J was not the non-resident parent and referred the case to a specialist team to remove his details from their system. An ‘incident number’ was raised but no further action was taken. (The Agency told us that a National Insurance number removal form should have been completed and sent to the team, but they were unable to confirm if that was done. As no note was made on the system to tell officers that Mr J was not the non-resident parent, his details were not removed.) The Agency awarded Mr J compensation of £100.
On 18 December 2006 the Agency sent Mr J two letters: one demanded immediate payment of £3,498 arrears; the other said that a maintenance payment of £144 was overdue. Mr J was ‘mortified and extremely upset’ to receive letters from the Agency again. He rang the Agency and was promised a call back, which he did not receive. On 21 December the Agency sent Mr J a letter saying they would collect the maintenance through a deduction from earnings order. Mr J telephoned them on 28 December to explain they had previously accepted that he was not the non-resident parent. The Agency told us this was the first time they identified that the action taken in 2003 to remove Mr J’s details had not worked. No one returned Mr J’s call.
On 19 January 2007 the Agency wrote to tell Mr J that he owed arrears of £5,544, and that unless he made arrangements to pay, they would involve a debt collection agency. Mr J telephoned the Agency, but they did not call him back. In February, after the Agency had imposed a deduction from earnings order, Mr J’s employer deducted £213.36 from his wages (£212.36 for maintenance and arrears, and a £1 administration fee). Mr J telephoned the Agency on 15 February, and again explained the history of his dealings with them. He asked to be called back. He telephoned again on 16 February, saying he was unhappy that no one had called him back and reiterating that he was not the non-resident parent. Mr J did not receive the call back he had requested.
On 20 February 2007 Mr J telephoned the Agency and was told that the debt collection agency had been asked not to take any further action. The next day the Agency’s solicitors wrote to Mr J, saying that his failure to respond to an earlier letter from them left the Agency no alternative but to take enforcement action. They intended to apply for a deduction from earnings order unless he paid £5,610 by 28 February.
On 23 February the Agency telephoned Mr J. They apologised to him and advised that the case would be closed. They also told Mr J’s employer that the deduction from earnings order had been terminated and refunded £212.36 to Mr J.
In March 2007 Mr J’s MP wrote to the Agency and to the Parliamentary Under‑Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to complain about the Agency’s treatment of Mr J. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State replied to the MP, saying that Mr J had been identified as the non-resident parent based on ‘a slight similarity to the date of birth that a parent with care had provided’. He said that the Agency had not removed Mr J’s records from their system in 2003, which had resulted in him receiving further letters. He apologised for the way the Agency had dealt with Mr J and said that they had assured him that they had removed his details from their computer system.
On 4 April 2007 the Agency twice wrote to Mr J about arrangements for collecting maintenance payments. The Agency say this happened because the ‘prompt’ placed on their computer system to prevent further notifications being issued did not work. On 5 April Mr J wrote to the MP enclosing the previous day’s letter. He said he was upset and angry that nothing had changed after everything he had been through. He said:
‘I don’t think the CSA know how much pain and anguish they have and are still putting me through. I’m at the end of my tether. I am very worried how this is affecting my credit rating and security details. No one has assured me that my records will return to normal or that my mental health or the trust of my family will be returned. How do I know this won’t happen again? I don’t, because there has been no guarantee that it will stop.’
On 20 April 2007 the Agency told the MP that Mr J had been incorrectly identified as the non-resident parent because they had not followed the relevant procedures. They had only established a ‘tentative link with the date of birth provided by the parent with care’. They said they had now removed ‘all’ of Mr J’s details from the system, and had awarded him compensation of £250 for gross inconvenience and £150 for severe distress. This payment was wrongly sent to Mr J’s neighbour. The Agency apologised to Mr J and made him a further payment of £200 for gross embarrassment.
In May 2007 Mr J’s MP referred a complaint to the Ombudsman. In February 2008, during our investigation, the Agency sent Mr J a schedule for maintenance payments, addressed to ‘Mr Person Erroneous’. The Agency told us that they had previously removed only Mr J’s name and National Insurance number from their system and put an ‘inhibitor’ in place to prevent the issue of further correspondence. However, they thought the action on Mr J’s case resulting from our investigation could have caused the system to remove the inhibitor. The Agency reapplied the inhibitor and removed Mr J’s address from their system. They said that they had also amended their procedures to ensure that addresses as well as names and National Insurance numbers are removed in future.
What we investigated
We investigated the Agency’s incorrect identification of Mr J as the non-resident parent and why they failed to put things right once they were made aware of their error.
Mr J told us that the Agency’s actions caused him shame and anxiety. He felt that he had been ‘violated financially, mentally and emotionally’ as had his privacy, family and work life ‘all because nobody would listen to him’. He said he had never had a clear, direct apology from the Agency with which he could prove his innocence to his family.
What our investigation found
Having wrongly identified Mr J as the non-resident parent it was incumbent on the Agency to put things right. After appearing to do so when they awarded compensation to Mr J, they then failed to remove his details from their system. Their failure to rectify the situation became apparent to them on 28 December 2006, and Mr J’s telephone call gave them another opportunity to put things right. Instead, they took no substantive action until 20 February 2007 after wrongly imposing a deduction from earnings order. The Agency continued to pursue Mr J until April 2007. In trying to redress their errors, the Agency then made a further error by sending the compensation payment to the wrong address. Their total failure to put things right was maladministration. The issue of a further collection schedule in February 2008 showed the Agency had not learnt from their maladministration or revised procedures to prevent the same thing happening again. Those further failings amounted to maladministration.
In summary, the Agency repeatedly did not ‘get it right’ in their dealings with Mr J, and failed to ‘put things right’ (two of the Principles of Good Administration). This caused Mr J stress, frustration and embarrassment. In particular, it affected his relationship with his family and partner as well as his dignity and self-esteem and impacted on his work and health. His stress and embarrassment were compounded by the Agency’s repetition of their failures and he experienced frustration and hopelessness.
Our investigation was concluded in September 2008 and we upheld Mr J’s complaint.
Outcome
The Ombudsman’s Principles for Remedy (‘Getting it right’ and ‘Putting things right’) recommend taking into account both objective evidence and more subjective views of the impact of the injustice or hardship and considering the full impact on the individual. In this case we considered that the Agency’s actions disrupted Mr J’s life in an extreme way both professionally and personally, without justification, and that the payments made by the Agency were not adequate redress for that.
In response to our recommendations, the Agency:
- made a further compensation payment of £1,800 to Mr J; and
- sent Mr J a written apology from a senior officer and gave him the contact details of another senior officer whom he can contact if anything goes wrong in future.
