News story

20th March 2002

Computer Hitch Delays Reform of Child Support Payments

Professor Steve Webb MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on today’s announcement that the new CSA computer system was not ready to handle the Government’s April reforms, said:

“If this computer system can’t cope with the trickle of new cases, then what chance is there that it will be able to handle the flood of existing cases once they are transferred? This is such a shambles that not only is implementation delayed, but the Government doesn’t even know when the new system will start.

“This is the latest in a long line of botched Government I.T. projects. We have been warning the Government for over two years that this was a disaster waiting to happen.

“Pensioners have already been victims of failing I.T. Now families and children will face the consequences of computer chaos.”

ENDS


Notes to Editors

· The new computer system was due to handle the Government’s new maintenance calculation formula which is to apply to all new CSA cases from next month. The 1 million existing cases are due to be transferred to the system when the Government is content that the new arrangements are “working well”.

· The computer system has already been delayed once. It was originally due to handle new cases in October 2001. In 1999, Baroness Hollis, Minister for Children and the Family, told the Social Security Select Committee that “We hope and expect that the new computer system will operating for new cases in 2001…We have every reason to believe that it will be ready by the end of 2001…”

· New I.T. for the CSA is estimated to cost £300 million. The Affinity Consortium has the contract. The Consortium is made up of EDS, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, IBM and AT Kearney.

· Steve Webb warned the Government in January 2000 of the potential delay to the new CSA computer system:

Hansard, 10 Jan 2000 : Column 12
Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): The case examiner will be rushed off her feet in October 2001 if the new computers that the Child Support Agency is paying for are not ready in time for the new formula. Given that the Department is incapable of paying pensions on time because of a computer bungle--despite a year of promising to sort out the problem--will the Minister guarantee on the record that the new system will not be put into place until the computers are ready?

Angela Eagle: I was astonished by the coverage that the hon. Gentleman provoked in the newspapers today about a reply I gave to him. He claimed that the computer system--which, by the way, does not yet exist, because Parliament has given us no money to buy it--is in chaos and delayed already. It is not delayed. It is on time to the extent--[Interruption.] We are in discussions with the providers of the computer system and we are drawing up the spec for it. The hon. Gentleman should--[Interruption.] We have been open about the fact that we will not introduce the new arrangements before we have a viable computer system in place. The previous Government did that when they bought an off-the-shelf system from Florida that was first made in 1975 and is now hopelessly out of date and useless at the job. We still have to use it and that is why the system is in such disarray.
We will get a new computer system, but the hon. Gentleman should stop scaremongering about things that do not exist yet. The reply that I gave him said that the child support project would be over in 2003, but he clearly does not realise that projects wind down only after
computer systems have been turned on and the entire case load has been moved over. The hon. Gentleman should stop scaremongering and try to help us make the change.