The Commons Public Accounts Committee has published a report of its review of the the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission's (the Commission) cost reduction plans.
The Committee is encouraged that the new management at the Commission say they recognise the problems they face and have started to address them. However, significant and all too familiar and recurring challenges remain:
- parents are frustrated with the standard of support received from the Commission, and too often fail to get any or the right amount of maintenance from non-residential parents;
- maintenance payments totalling some £3.7 billion are outstanding, but the Commission estimates that only £1 billion of this is collectable; and
- costs remain high.
According to the Committee, these continuing problems are difficult to tackle, yet the Commission faces further significant challenges in introducing its new child maintenance scheme. In particular, it will need to respond to substantial cost reductions and successfully implement a new system of charging fees to parents who choose to use the Commission’s services.
The Commission needs to deliver acceptable standards of service at a reasonable cost. The new child maintenance scheme should improve efficiency, but further changes are needed to streamline existing processes. Better management information is also required to identify areas for further cost reductions.
Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v1.0.