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Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - April to September 2000
Volume 3 - 3rd REPORT - SESSION 2000-2001
Chapter 1
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY
14. Case No. C.508/00
Child Support Agency: mishandling of an application for child support and failure to collect any maintenance Summary
Following Miss H's application for child support maintenance in May 1993 the Child Support Agency made an interim maintenance assessment which replaced an existing court order. The Child Support Agency failed to take effective enforcement action and did not collect any child support maintenance. In May 1997 the Child Support Agency realised that the interim maintenance was invalid and cancelled it, writing off the arrears. They then sent Miss H's papers to storage and failed to take any further action until August 1998. The Child Support Agency subsequently made consolatory payments of £250 for gross inconvenience and £20 costs to Miss H. In July 1999 the Child Support Agency asked the court to reinstate the court order with effect from September 1993, which the court did establishing that there were accrued arrears of £4,785. The Ombudsman criticised the Child Support Agency for their errors and delays and, following his intervention, the Child Support Agency wrote to the court and explained the events leading to their request for the court order to be reinstated. The court then cancelled the court order. The Child Support Agency calculated a full maintenance assessment and made a lump sum arrears payment to Miss H of £5,207.91, together with £617.30 for loss of use of that money. The Child Support Agency also made an additional consolatory payment of £100 for gross inconvenience.
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Full text
1. Miss H complained that the Child Support Agency (CSA) mishandled her application for child support and caused her considerable financial loss in the form of child support maintenance which had not been paid and which could no longer be obtained from the non-resident parent. She also complained that the special payment of £270 made by CSA did not adequately redress that loss, or the worry, distress and inconvenience which she has been caused.
Investigation
2. Annex A describes the legislative and procedural background to this case and Annex B provides a summary of the key events relevant to the investigation.
CSA's comments on the complaint
3. In her comments to the Ombudsman on Miss H's complaint, the Chief Executive of CSA said that Miss H's application for child support maintenance had been subjected to errors and delays. CSA had imposed an invalid interim maintenance assessment and had subsequently failed to obtain the relevant information from the non-resident parent to calculate a full maintenance assessment. The Chief Executive said she had written personally to Miss H to apologise for the poor standard of service she had received.
4. The Chief Executive said that recent developments suggested that the non-resident parent (to whom I refer in this report as Mr X) might have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, which if confirmed, would result in a nil maintenance assessment calculated from the date of imprisonment. However, in the meantime, CSA had written to the court and asked if the court order for child maintenance, which existed prior to CSA's involvement, could be reinstated.
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Later developments
5. On 10 November 1999 the Court Service told the Ombudsman's staff that the court had reinstated Miss H's court order for child maintenance from 29 September 1993 at a rate of £15 a week. They said that they would not take enforcement action to recover Mr X's arrears, which then stood at £4,785, until CSA had decided if they would pay Miss H compensation. On 18 November, in answer to an enquiry from the Ombudsman's staff, CSA said that "it would have seemed prudent to have advised the court that (the interim maintenance assessment) was invalid because the warning period had not expired...".
6. On 27 January 2000 the Chief Executive told the Ombudsman that the Court Service had told CSA in December 1999 that they were pursuing Mr X for the arrears due under the court order. On 29 March, following further representations from the Ombudsman's staff, the Chief Executive acknowledged that CSA had given the court incorrect information when they had told them that they did not have jurisdiction. She said that she had asked CSA to give the court an accurate explanation for their request for reinstatement of the court order and to give the court the opportunity to reconsider their decision. On 18 May CSA told the Ombudsman's staff that the court had cancelled the court order. CSA said that they had since calculated a full maintenance assessment for Mr X and, based on that assessment, would make Miss H an advance lump sum payment of arrears of £5,207.91, together with £617.30 for loss of use of that money (Annex A, 14A.6). In calculating the arrears payable to Miss H, CSA abated her total child support maintenance arrears to take account of the income support paid to her between 29 March 1993 and 26 January 1997 and the family credit she received between 26 July 1998 and 22 July 1999.
Back to top Findings
7. As CSA have acknowledged they handled Miss H's case badly from the outset. Having made an interim maintenance assessment on 29 September 1993 CSA failed to tell the court that they had done so until 29 August 1995 (Annex B, 14B.4). When Mr X contacted CSA in October 1993 he appeared to be willing to co-operate with CSA but they took no follow up action until 10 March 1994 (Annex B, 14B.2). I criticise CSA for missing that opportunity to obtain information from an apparently co-operative non-resident parent.
8. CSA initiated two periodic reviews of Mr X's interim maintenance assessment, sending Mr X the review forms on 31 August 1994 and 30 August 1995 (Annex B, 14B.2, 14B.4). On each occasion they failed to pursue the reviews beyond warning Mr X that they might impose fresh interim maintenance assessments. They should not have sent the first periodic review form (Annex A, 14A.4) and their failure to pursue the second periodic review would have prevented them enforcing Mr X's arrears of child support maintenance for any period after its due date.
9. Although CSA sent Mr X arrears notices on 18 October 1993 and 14 January 1994 they took no other action to obtain child support maintenance from him until January 1996 (Annex B, 14B.5) when they decided to apply to the courts for a liability order. If they had taken more effective action they might have noticed sooner that the interim maintenance assessment was flawed. Following the unsuccessful bailiff action CSA began proceedings to obtain a charging order on Mr X's property. However that action was muddled and lacked urgency (Annex B, 14B.6, 14B.7). While the errors above merit criticism, the more fundamental error in the interim maintenance assessment meant however that any enforcement action was doomed to be ineffective.
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10. Despite two earlier accuracy checks it was only in May 1997 that CSA noticed that the interim maintenance assessment was invalid (Annex B, 14B.8). This meant that they had to cancel the interim maintenance assessment and to write off Mr X's arrears. I criticise CSA for the elementary error that they made when raising the assessment, and for the time which they took to recognise that error. It has had far reaching consequences for Miss H.
11. Following CSA's cancellation of the interim maintenance assessment they noted that Miss H had made a valid application and that they needed to make a maintenance assessment (Annex B, 14B.8). Despite that, CSA sent Miss H's papers to storage and took no further action on her case until August 1998 (Annex B, 14B.9). I criticise CSA for that delay.
12. Two years after they had realised that the interim maintenance assessment was defective CSA asked the court to reinstate the court order (Annex B, 14B.13). CSA told the court that CSA had not had jurisdiction (Annex B, 14B.15) but, because Miss H had been in receipt of family credit, she had been within CSA's jurisdiction at the time the interim maintenance assessment was made (Annex A, 14A.1). I criticise CSA for failing, when asked, to inform the court of the exact circumstances behind their request. I welcome the Chief Executive's acknowledgement that CSA had given the court inaccurate information and the action, albeit belated, that CSA have taken to rectify that. I also welcome CSA's subsequent decision to make Miss H a lump sum advance payment of the child support maintenance which they had failed to obtain on her behalf (paragraph 14.6).
13. In the light of my findings I asked the Chief Executive if CSA would look again at the consolatory payment they had awarded to Miss H. The Chief Executive said that in view of the exceptional inconvenience caused to Miss H CSA have made her a consolatory payment of £100 in addition to the payment of £250 she had already received (Annex B, 14B.12).
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Conclusion
14. CSA have admitted that Miss H has not received the standard of service she was entitled to expect. CSA have made Miss H payments of £350 for inconvenience and £20 for costs; and a lump sum arrears payment of £5,207.91, together with £617.30 payment for loss of use of that money. I consider all this, together with the Chief Executive's apologies, to be a satisfactory outcome to a fully justified complaint.
Annex A – Legislative and Procedural Background
Annex B – Summary of key events
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