News story

26th January 2005

Local MP Backs Plans to Scrap Agency Which has Failed Local People

Northavon MP Steve Webb has welcomed proposals from an all-party group of MPs to scrap the Child Support Agency. The MP said that ever since he was first elected in 1997 local people have been visiting his surgery in droves to complain about the failures of the agency, and that it was time urgent action was taken to help ensure that children received the financial report to which they were entitled.

In its report this week, the Work and Pensions Select Committee, which has a majority of Labour MPs, gave the government weeks to improve the CSA's performance and said that if this could not be done it should seriously consider its abolition.

Commenting on the new report, Steve Webb, who speaks for the Lib Dems in the House of Commons on work and pensions issues said:

"I welcome this report, which finally recognises the failure of the CSA. Hundreds of local families have been missing out on money that they desperately need. From conversations with many families in our area, I have been long convinced that the CSA is beyond repair.

"It is time for the government to admit that the CSA has been a fiasco from the start and that it should be scrapped. Instead, the Inland Revenue should have a greater role in assessing and enforcing maintenance payments."

The Committee found that a new computer system designed to make it simpler to calculate and collect child maintenance had actually made matters worse.