Home > Publications > Selected cases— Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations: April 2001 to September 2001 > Case No. C.392/01
Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations
PCA 6th Report – Session 2001-2002
Chapter 1
DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS
Child Support Agency: lost opportunity to obtain maintenance due to five years’ delay
Summary
The Child Support Agency (CSA) received Mrs K's application for child support maintenance for her three children in March 1994. The papers were filed away in December 1995. Despite prompting by Mrs K, CSA took no action on the case until March 1999, when they noted that the youngest child had reached age 19 and had ceased to be a qualifying child. At that point they had not sent a maintenance enquiry form to the non-resident parent or even established that he accepted paternity. The case was closed, but CSA did not tell Mrs K that. When she complained CSA offered her a consolatory payment of £250 for inconvenience. The Ombudsman found that CSA’s maladministration warranted his strongest criticism. Following the Ombudsman’s intervention CSA agreed to contact the non-resident parent on an informal, no-liability basis, to ask for information about his income and housing costs so that they could calculate a notional assessment and determine more appropriate compensation for Mrs K. They were subsequently able to calculate notional assessments for the period between June 1994 and September 1996, after which the youngest child had gone to live with his father and the other children had ceased to qualify for maintenance. CSA agreed to pay Mrs K compensation totalling £6,207.70 for financial loss, plus £1,722.93 interest, and to increase the consolatory payment by a payment of £100 for severe distress.
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Full text
13.1 Mrs K complained that the Child Support Agency (CSA), an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, formerly the Department of Social Security, failed to process her application for child support maintenance for five years, as a result of which she lost the opportunity to receive maintenance payments. She contended that her case had been accorded no priority merely because she was not in receipt of benefit. She complained that the consolatory payment of £250 offered by CSA was wholly inadequate when compared to the actual financial loss she had incurred.
13.2 My investigation began in August 2000 once the Ombudsman had received the comments of the then Chief Executive of CSA after the Member’s referral of the complaint. I have not put into this report every detail investigated by the Ombudsman’s staff, but I am satisfied that no matter of significance has been overlooked.
Background
13.3 CSA was set up by the Child Support Act 1991 (the Act) to administer the assessment, collection and enforcement of child support maintenance. Under section 4 of the Act, a parent with care who is not in receipt of a prescribed benefit may seek child support maintenance for a qualifying child or children through CSA by completing a maintenance application form. This form provides information about her financial circumstances and details about the non-resident parent. CSA should then send a maintenance enquiry form to the non-resident parent to obtain a financial statement so that his maintenance liability can be assessed in accordance with a standard formula.
13.4 At the time relevant to Mrs K’s complaint, maintenance assessments were made by child support officers (now called decision-makers) working in CSA regional centres, supported by a network of field offices. The centre at Belfast dealt with Mrs K’s case. Decisions related to the establishment of maintenance liability are made using CSA’s guide for decision-makers. According to part 1 of this guide, before making a maintenance assessment CSA must ensure that they have jurisdiction over the maintenance application, which includes a determination of whether the alleged non-resident parent can be treated as a parent of the qualifying child. This is normally established when the alleged non-resident parent signs a declaration to accept paternity on the maintenance enquiry form.
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13.5 The particular standards of service to which CSA are committed are set out in the CSA Charter, first published in November 1993 and republished in November 1996 and July 1997. The Charter lays down what CSA judge to be normal processing times for each stage of the process of establishing maintenance liability. The relevant section of the Charter says that CSA normally aim to complete new maintenance assessments within 26 weeks.
13.6 The Department for Work and Pensions publish a guide on financial redress for maladministration, which contains policy and guidance on the consideration of ex gratia payments to those of their customers who have suffered as a result of departmental error. The general aim of the scheme, the broad scope of which the Ombudsman and his predecessors have accepted, is to put the customer back in the position he or she would have been in had the maladministration not occurred. Compensation may be offered for loss of child support maintenance through maladministration if the actual financial loss can be determined, together with interest for loss of use of the money. Normally such compensation is based on the relevant rate of the maintenance assessment, although in some circumstances a notional assessment may be based on unequivocal proof or sufficient evidence of the non-resident parent’s circumstances before the effective date of the maintenance assessment. If it is not possible to perform a notional assessment or the maintenance assessment stands at nil, it will not normally be possible to consider financial redress for loss of opportunity to receive maintenance. However, if the non-resident parent was in receipt of benefit, redress may be appropriate in the form of the minimum contribution to maintenance prescribed by law. If the customer has suffered gross inconvenience from persistent error, gross embarrassment or severe distress as a result of maladministration, a consolatory payment may be made. The normal range of such consolatory payments is from £50 to £250, but payments of higher amounts, up to £1,000, may be made in appropriate circumstances. In extreme cases a higher payment will be considered, but it is unlikely to exceed £2,000. Claims for severe distress will arise when the customer alleges that departmental error has caused a significant deterioration in his or her physical or mental health; and the customer will normally be expected to provide medical evidence in support of the claim.
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Investigation
13.7 1994 Mrs K completed a maintenance application form for those receiving income support, on 16 February. As this was not the correct form (she was receiving family credit, not income support, at the relevant time) she completed a further form, which CSA received on 15 March. She gave the name and address of the alleged non-resident parent on this form and provided details about her income and about the three qualifying children. She said that the alleged non-resident parent worked as a bus driver, but also owned three properties, from two of which he received rental income. On 31 March the form was passed to a child support officer to issue a maintenance enquiry form. However, no further action was taken.
13.8 1995 CSA’s computer system records that on 4 May Mrs K telephoned to ask about progress on her application. It also records that on 5 June an instruction was again given that a child support officer should issue a maintenance enquiry form. There is no copy of the instruction in CSA’s papers; and no action was taken. The computer record shows that the instruction was filed away on 3 December.
13.9 1997 CSA’s computer record shows that on 11 July Mrs K’s file was requested from the file store. (Note: there is no record to show why, although in her complaint Mrs K said that she had made many telephone calls to ask about her case. There is no record of any calls at this time in CSA’s papers, however.) The case papers were sent back to the file store on 13 October. No action was taken on Mrs K’s case in the interim.
13.10 1998 On 6 October CSA noted that Mrs K had telephoned to ask about progress on her case. The computer record shows that another instruction was given for a child support officer to issue a maintenance enquiry form to the non-resident parent. (Note: no copy of this instruction is retained in CSA’s papers.) However, once again no action was taken.
13.11 1999 On 13 February the case papers were requested from the file store. (Note: there is no explanation why this occurred.) On 15 March CSA noted on the computer system that the youngest qualifying child had reached the age of 19. As a maintenance enquiry form had not been issued, the case was closed. The papers were returned to the file store on 1 April. (Note: there is no record on CSA’s file that Mrs K was informed that the case had been closed.)
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13.12 2000 On 16 February Mrs K wrote to CSA to ask why nothing had been done about her claim for maintenance. She telephoned CSA’s national enquiry line on 14 March. According to CSA’s record of the call, they told her that her case had been closed and that no maintenance enquiry form had ever been issued to the alleged non-resident parent. They also told her that she could claim compensation because of CSA’s delay.
13.13 On 25 March the Member wrote to CSA enclosing a letter from Mrs K seeking his help. In her letter Mrs K said that she believed CSA had not taken any action on her case because she was working full time and not claiming any benefit. The Member asked CSA to investigate Mrs K’s case and to consider substantial compensation for her lost opportunity to receive child support maintenance. CSA telephoned Mrs K on 6 April to discuss her case. According to their note of the call she asked for a response in writing. CSA replied to the Member on 18 April. They apologised for the inexcusable delay in dealing with Mrs K’s case and said that the matter had been referred to the special payments team to consider making an ex gratia payment (paragraph 13.6). They assured the Member that all clients were dealt with in an unbiased manner regardless of their status.
13.14 On 22 May CSA awarded Mrs K a consolatory payment of £250 for the gross inconvenience caused by their maladministration. (Note: the accompanying letter to Mrs K was dated 22 April. In the second paragraph it said that a payment of £100 was to be made, but in the third paragraph it said the payment was to be £250.) Mrs K wrote to the Member on 26 May to say that she was upset and insulted by the amount of compensation offered by CSA and was minded to return it. The Member referred Mrs K’s complaint to the Ombudsman on 20 June.
CSA’s comments on the complaint
13.15 On 7 August the then Chief Executive of CSA in her comments on Mrs K’s complaint recognised that no effective action had been taken on Mrs K’s case by the time it had been closed five years after she had initially applied for maintenance. She said that CSA had not been able to consider compensation for loss of maintenance because no maintenance assessment had ever been made on which to base it. However, she said that she had asked the CSA centre, as a matter of priority, to gather the necessary information to enable a notional assessment to be made in order to determine whether Mrs K had suffered a financial loss as the result of CSA’s maladministration. If it were found that Mrs K had so suffered, an award to compensate her for the lost opportunity to receive child support maintenance would be considered. The then Chief Executive apologised unreservedly for CSA’s poor handling of the case, but said that she was unable to offer any explanation for the series of inexcusable delays which had occurred. She wrote personally to Mrs K to offer her apologies.
Later developments
13.16 Following the Ombudsman’s intervention there were further developments. CSA told the Ombudsman on 21 September 2000 that they could not legally gather the information necessary to enable a calculation of a notional assessment to ascertain the extent of the actual financial loss suffered by Mrs K. That was because legally there were no longer any qualifying children and because no maintenance enquiry form had ever been sent to the alleged non-resident parent. CSA later suggested that one possibility would be to base the notional amount of maintenance on the minimum amount specified in law. However, they also pointed out that in the absence of a maintenance enquiry form they had not even established that the non-resident parent had acknowledged paternity of the children. CSA said that they would contact Mrs K to ask her if she could provide any objective evidence that she had suffered severe distress because of their maladministration.
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Findings
13.17 That Mrs K has been the victim of serious maladministration is not in doubt. CSA completely failed even to begin the assessment process. Mrs K says that she repeatedly telephoned them over the five-year period of their inactivity to press for progress. Although only two of her calls were logged on CSA’s computer system (paragraphs 13.8 and 13.10), I have no reason to doubt her. The then Chief Executive of CSA was unable to offer any explanation for the series of inexcusable delays that occurred between 15 March 1994, when CSA received the appropriate application form from Mrs K, and 15 March 1999, when CSA closed her case having taken absolutely no action on that application (paragraph 13.11). Even then, CSA did not have the courtesy to inform Mrs K that they were closing her case. I have been unable to establish through my investigation how such a complete failure of procedure came about. I note that action was finally taken five years to the day from CSA’s receipt of the valid maintenance application form from Mrs K. There is nothing on CSA’s papers to show what prompted that action at that time, so it can only be a matter of speculation as to why the case came to be dealt with precisely on its fifth anniversary. Nor is there anything to show what prompted CSA to put the file into storage in December 1995 and again in October 1997. Equally, however, there is no evidence to support Mrs K’s contention that CSA ignored her because she was a private client and not claiming benefit. Nevertheless, CSA’s disregard of proper procedures and their total failure to provide Mrs K with any service warrant my strongest criticism.
13.18 CSA paid Mrs K £250, the normal expected maximum consolatory payment for gross inconvenience (paragraph 13.6). However, I was bound to consider whether the redress that CSA offered Mrs K was appropriate to compensate her for the effects of their maladministration, and in particular whether it met the objective of putting her back in the position she would have been in but for the maladministration. I recognised that CSA had no legal authority to determine retrospectively a maintenance assessment in this case. Furthermore, without a maintenance assessment CSA had no basis for determining whether Mrs K had suffered an actual financial loss. Even though Mrs K told CSA at the outset that the non-resident parent was employed and also had rental income, it was not wholly inconceivable that a maintenance assessment, if determined properly, would have been nil. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that CSA owed it to Mrs K to do whatever they could at least to attempt to calculate a notional assessment. Indeed, the then Chief Executive told the Ombudsman in August 2000 that she had asked the CSA Centre to prepare a notional assessment (paragraph 13.15).
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13.19 I therefore asked the Chief Executive if CSA would re-consider the position. I suggested that CSA should at least attempt to trace the alleged non-resident parent and ask him informally if he would confirm that he was the father of the children and provide information about his income (or authority to obtain that information from the Inland Revenue) and expenses between 1994 and 1999. Such an approach would need to be on the basis of a guarantee that there would be no attempt to recover money from him. I recognised that in the circumstances he might well refuse to co-operate, but it seemed to me that CSA should at least make the attempt, to demonstrate some commitment to making amends to Mrs K for their wholly inadequate service to her. It also seemed to me that, if the approach to the non-resident parent was unsuccessful, CSA should consider compensating Mrs K at the rate of the minimum contribution to maintenance prescribed by law, as would have been possible had the non-resident parent’s paternity been established and had he been in receipt of benefit throughout the period of Mrs K’s application (paragraph 13.6).
13.20 The Chief Executive told me that CSA accepted that, at the very least, a payment at the rate of the minimum contribution to maintenance should be paid to Mrs K. That payment was calculated as £879.81, plus £179.50 interest for loss of use of the money. The sum of £1,059.31 was paid to Mrs K on 14 March 2001. CSA also agreed to make Mrs K a further consolatory payment of £100 for severe distress.
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13.21 Following the Ombudsman’s intervention CSA contacted the non-resident parent. After protracted discussions with him, his solicitor and with Mrs K, during which CSA established that Mrs K’s youngest child had lived with the non-resident parent from 2 September 1996 onwards, CSA were able to compute a notional assessment. That came to £57.51 per week from June 1994 (after allowing the normal three months’ processing time from the date of Mrs K’s application), £44.95 per week from February 1996 when the eldest child reached age 19 and ceased to be a qualifying child, and £31.67 per week from July 1996, when the second child ceased to be a qualifying child. After taking into account the sum of £879.81 plus interest already paid to Mrs K in March, CSA calculated that further compensation due on the basis of the notional assessments amounted to £5,327.89 plus £1,543.43 further interest. That payment will be made to Mrs K shortly. I welcome CSA’s positive response to the Ombudsman’s request that they should consider making a notional assessment in this case.
13.22 I now turn to the adequacy of the consolatory payment offered to Mrs K. I leave aside the clumsy inaccuracy of CSA’s letter of 22 May 2000 to her, which seems to have been mis-dated and confusingly referred to payment first of £100 and then of £250 (although that carelessness was particularly reprehensible in the circumstances). I can well understand why Mrs K should feel insulted by that offer as all the compensation then proposed. However, in the light of the review of the compensation offered, which has resulted in agreement to pay a substantial sum for financial loss, it seems to me that the consolatory payments offered of £250 for gross inconvenience and £100 for severe distress are an appropriate recognition of the adverse effect on Mrs K’s life of CSA’s serious maladministration in this case.
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Conclusion
13.23 Although I have not found evidence to support Mrs K’s view that her case was given no priority simply because she was not claiming benefit, I found Mrs K’s complaint otherwise to be fully justified. She was badly let down by CSA. While CSA cannot turn the clock back, I regard the payment of compensation totalling £6,207.70 for financial loss, plus £1,722.93 interest, together with consolatory payments totalling £350, to be a satisfactory outcome to the complaint.
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