I am grateful to you, Mr. Hood, and to Mr. Speaker for allowing me to raise the Child Support Agency’s extreme shortcomings, and particularly two constituency cases that will more than amplify those. I am also grateful to the Minister for being here this morning. He has the unenviable task of trying to answer for an agency that I believe is completely out of control.

Let me begin with the case of Ms Sonia Poulton, whose story is among the worst cases of officialdom working against the vulnerable and weak that I have witnessed during 15 years in this House. To date, I have written 23 letters and made 14 telephone calls about Ms Poulton and the maintenance of her daughter Shaye. Neither Ms Poulton nor I are satisfied with her treatment by the CSA, and I am staggered by the gross ineptitude that characterises the agency’s dealings with her.

Ms Poulton first approached me on 27 January 2004, three and a half years ago, as her payments from the CSA had ceased owing to a “computer error”. Even three years ago, Ms Poulton characterised her position as “hellish” and stated that

“despite repeated promises from them, the situation has seriously deteriorated”.

That turned out not to be an isolated occurrence. Throughout 2004, the CSA failed to collect payments because it was told that the father of Ms Poulton’s daughter had left his employment with a London local authority. That turned out not to be the case. The local authority for which he worked had failed to fulfil the deduction of earnings order in his paperwork, and the CSA had not chased a response.

Shortly afterwards Shaye’s father did move job and in October 2004 a consolatory payment was promised when my office telephoned the MPs’ hotline. However, Ms Poulton was informed directly by the CSA a little later that an assessment and a consolatory payment could not be made until a month later in November. The CSA informed us that £110 was sent to Ms Poulton on 27 October, but that was never received. Meanwhile, Sonia Poulton and her daughter were plunged into even greater debt. In December 2004, we saw no ray of hope when the independent case examiner accepted Ms Poulton’s case. That move, of course had no effect on the CSA making a payment of £120 on 20 December. It was fitting, however, that Ms Poulton’s first payment of 2004 should come in December.

The case was investigated, and the CSA was found to be at fault. It was ordered to consider—only consider—a consolatory payment and compensation to Ms Poulton. Despite being brought before the independent case examiner, who identified its faults, the CSA compounded its error by writing to Ms Poulton in November 2005 announcing that her arrears amounted to £1,335.86, despite earlier reports that they amounted to £5,191.18. I wrote to the agency demanding to know why Ms Poulton’s arrears had been reduced by a staggering £3,855.32.

Meanwhile, the independent case examiner recommended that the case should be investigated by the ombudsman, and told the CSA that the arrears occurred only as a result of its maladministration, and that the agency should make an advance payment. By December 2006, the CSA said that the arrears had increased to £4,298.30, but in a characteristic sidestep stated that the advance payment was not ready. Ms Poulton was grossly misled by her CSA caseworker, Shaheen Khan, who was based in the Bolton office. Ms Khan claimed that she had spoken to Shaye’s father on 5 January 2007 and established a deduction from earnings order. She claimed that he had submitted the order to his current place of employment and that payments would be forthcoming. Ms Khan verified that both verbally and in writing. Mid February arrived, but maintenance did not. On 21 February, a different CSA employee confirmed that no money had been received by the CSA, and that Shaye’s father had in fact left his employment on 3 October, three months earlier, so it is beyond me how Ms Khan was able to speak to Shaye’s father on 5 January.

On discovering privately that her former partner had left his place of employment, Sonia Poulton raised the issue, and Ms Khan behaved in a deeply inappropriate and impertinent way according to my constituent. The chief executive’s office, no less, subsequently apologised for that behaviour and blamed it on the stress of working in the Bolton office. That particular member of staff’s behaviour, which Ms Poulton reported in writing, is deplorable and worthy of disciplinary action, if it has not already been taken.

On 21 February, Ms Poulton wrote to me to say that she had not received payments since October 2006 because the CSA had told her that the maintenance schedule had expired, and no one had thought to put a new one in place. Although a new schedule was prepared from January 2007, no payments were received. In April this year, I chased the CSA and, believe it or not, it could find no record of those responsible for dealing with Ms Poulton’s case because—you may have guessed, Mr. Hood—the files had gone missing and the computer system had failed.

The CSA admitted that the Hastings office, where Ms Poulton’s case was being handled, was unable to secure a response from the Bolton office, and that if I was unhappy about that, I should write to the independent case examiner. The examiner’s reply in May said that the matter had been referred to the CSA chief executive. One could not have made up this story of incompetence.

Finally, on 11 June, my office was told that Shaye’s father was receiving jobseeker’s allowance, and that no arrears would be collected until his employment recommenced, when a new assessment would be made. Who knows what new and exciting challenges that reassessment will bring. Alison Cox, in the CEO’s office, told us that the Bolton office refused to communicate with the rest of the agency. In fact, when Ms Poulton spoke to Ms Cox, she had more up-to-date information, garnered from her MP’s office, than the CEO of the agency. That of course raises serious questions about the agency’s ability to keep track of cases, and poses serious questions about its internal management.

The CSA’s staff agree that something should be done about the Bolton office. I was advised that staff turnover there is high. Information was excessively difficult to extract and the staff had no concept of the fact that they were dealing with people’s lives. That is, I think, a conclusion that I would have reached independently, although I was grateful to have it confirmed by the impressions of the staff in the Hastings office—I mean that sincerely.

Overall, Ms Poulton’s case is a sorry tale of gross maladministration and lack of consistent information or interest from many of the officers and staff who were duty bound to look out for the interests of young Shaye and her mother. She is still owed thousands of pounds. Will the Minister today guarantee—I do not want mere platitudes—that the matter will be rapidly sorted out?

This case is especially vexing to me, because I have raised it before with the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), who said that the agency would

“be able to clarify all the outstanding points.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 580.]

Let us hope that today the Minister, for whom I have high regard, can clarify some of the outstanding points.

Let me now turn to my second constituency case. Mr. David Dalleywater first contacted me in February this year stating that the CSA had written to him claiming that he had not been paying the correct maintenance from 2000 to 2006. He was told that he owed arrears of £8,113.51, despite regularly paying £60 per week to the parent who had custody of his child. Later that month, he received a notice of liability order for the revised amount, which had fallen to £5,413.51. It staggers me that the agency can come up with such differing sums so rapidly one after another. That order was based on a letter of 2004, which my constituent denies ever signing. Mr. Dalleywater made several telephone calls, and was told erroneously, but repeatedly in writing and on the telephone, that he could not have a copy of the letter that he had apparently signed.

I wrote to the agency in February, requesting a copy of that letter. More than a month later on 27 March, I chased the agency, and in the meantime Mr. Dalleywater received a summons to appear in court on 18 April. Despite repeated requests, he had not received an account summary to show how his arrears had been calculated. On 17 April, the CSA relented and let Mr. Dalleywater know that he could have a copy of his alleged letter, providing he wrote again to ask for it. We were told that the CSA was preparing an account summary, which of course prompts the question of how it intended to proceed with a court case without that vital piece of information.

On 30 May, I received a delightful letter from the CSA, featuring “sorry” five times. It apologised for the unhelpfulness shown to Mr. Dalleywater during the CSA’s dealings with him. Although the sentiment is appreciated, it has not and does not clear up Mr. Dalleywater’s case. It is heartening that the disputed letter, of which Mr. Dalleywater finally saw a copy, has been passed to the criminal investigation team; however, the accompanying account breakdown indicated that Mr. Dalleywater owed not £5,413.51, but a staggering £18,094.57. One could not make it up. The CSA was gracious enough to admit that there was a slight discrepancy—in that instance to the tune of a mere £12,681.06. Court proceedings were therefore adjourned until the correct figures were ascertained. One can only imagine what the judge would have said if the agency had turned up with such unreliable figures.

Finally, on 6 July, we received a response stating that Mr. Dalleywater’s total arrears were actually £513.58. How the CSA was able to calculate such wildly different sums—with impunity and claim them all as gospel—is totally beyond me, and no doubt the rest of the House. The letter of 6 July explains the various and tortured routes that the Minister’s staff in the CSA took to arrive at such staggeringly different amounts—in the process, wasting time and taxpayers’ hard-earned money with their efforts.

I have written eight letters and made seven phone calls on behalf of Mr. Dalleywater, and although many CSA staff members have tried to be helpful, there are clearly deep and perhaps insurmountable problems in that faceless and creaking bureaucracy. The only part of the agency that seems to be able to function is the arm that takes people to court. David Dalleywater, like Sonia Poulton, feels that the CSA has treated his case appallingly. He was unable to obtain either direct answers to his questions from CSA staff, or indeed a copy of a letter that the CSA claimed he wrote in 2004.

I am sure that the Minister will be well aware of the CSA’s website statement that the agency can help to

“ensure parents who live apart from their children contribute financially to their upkeep...work out who should pay and how much...make sure more children receive the maintenance they are entitled to...take quick and firm action to make sure payments get made”.

It has failed to fulfil any of those tasks. The Home Office, on the admission of no less a celebrated and illustrious figure than the former Home Secretary, has been declared “not fit for purpose”. However, on the strength of those two cases, it seems that the Child Support Agency is not even fit to open an envelope.

The then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, now the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, declared a year ago that the CSA would be abolished. He said:

“These reforms will address the fundamental flaws in the current system.” —[Official Report, 24 July 2006; Vol. 449, c. 602.]

Goodbye to that unhappy agency, to the “troubled history” of the CSA, flawed from day one.

I ask the Minister sincerely not only to abolish the CSA, but to give me some firm pledges today that those two cases will be resolved rapidly, so that the children, particularly, and the parents who have custody of them, receive the money that they deserve.

I am delighted to reply to the debate that the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) has secured. He has been a doughty fighter on behalf of his constituents, and he and his constituency team have spent a considerable amount of time on the two cases that he has raised. I regret the fact that we are discussing them, because they were not handled in the manner that Child Support Agency clients are entitled to expect.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my sincere apologies. He suggested that he might be fed up with “sorry”, but I genuinely apologise for the situation that arose. He is entirely right to be angry and annoyed about what has happened. He recognises that, coincidentally, upstairs in Committee we are considering the Bill that will replace the Child Support Agency with the new commission. I have come down from that Committee to answer this debate.

With the hon. Gentleman’s permission, and with yours, Mr. Hood, first, I shall run through each case from the agency’s perspective, not to offer excuses, but to lay out the issues that he has highlighted, to explain what we are putting in place to ensure that such cases are dealt with properly in the future, and to give him some comfort concerning the situations that he raised. The hon. Gentleman knows that Mr. Dalleywater’s case is one of a small number in which both parents have a maintenance liability. In a common-sense situation, those liabilities could have been offset against each other, but under current legislation, two maintenance calculations are required, and maintenance is then collected from both parents.

Regrettably, those claims are complex, and unfortunately almost all counter-claims—one parent against another—result in an IT system malfunction. The case is now being dealt with by the agency’s clerical office at Bolton, and I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has some strong views about that office. We established it as a new unit to deal with all clerical cases that, owing to technical issues with our IT system, could not be progressed through the agency’s system. Under the operational improvement plan, the remaining faults with the IT system are due to be resolved throughout 2007.

Mr. Dalleywater’s assessment will now be made clerically, and again, I sincerely apologise for the events that led to his complaint. Our Bolton centre is now urgently considering his case, including backdating. It hopes to resolve all outstanding issues as soon as humanly possible, and I give the hon. Gentleman my personal reassurance that I shall keep on the tail of that case until it is resolved. The current treatment of cases such as Mr Dalleywater’s is inefficient, and it leads to complaints when the agency successfully collects maintenance from one parent but not from the other.

The measures in the new Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill mean that, although the commission will continue to make two statutory maintenance calculations, the lower amount will be offset against the higher. Offsetting statutory maintenance liabilities in such cases makes sense, as the hon. Gentleman will agree, and it will bring about the more efficient use of resources, because there will be only one maintenance liability to collect. In the case of Mr. Dalleywater, such a system would have helped to reduce much of the existing administrative complications that contributed to the complaint. However, in his case, there were some complicating factors that added to the situation.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the letter that was allegedly from Mr. Dalleywater, and I find it amazing that he was not allowed to see that letter without the hon. Gentleman’s precise intervention. That issue will be remedied. One cannot accuse someone of writing a letter, and then refuse to allow them to see the letter that they deny ever writing. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention was helpful in resolving that situation.

I now move on to the case of Sonia Poulton, a parent with care who, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, has had a tumultuous relationship with the agency since she applied for maintenance in 1998. In the years leading up to the complaint, Ms Poulton’s maintenance payments were disrupted on numerous occasions by the agency’s administrative failings. Again, I offer no excuse, and can only apologise. Arrears owed to Ms Poulton built up during that time, but agency miscalculations resulted in confusion about the total payable.

On 7 December 2006, Ms Poulton received a payment of £1,556, significantly less than she had been expecting after her discussions with the CSA. That provoked the current complaint. The case is now being processed clerically at our Bolton centre, where I understand it is a high priority. Once again, I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will keep on the tail of this case until it is resolved.

I am grateful for how the Minister is handling the two cases and for the explanations that she is giving me, but she said that both cases would go clerical. That has happened before. What reassurance can she give me that they will not get lost in the system again? How long does she expect the clerical process to take before the cases are resolved?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my personal commitment to ensuring that the cases are dealt with as expeditiously as possible, the correct calculations are made and the correct information is given to his constituents. I could stand here and say that the cases will be done by the end of tomorrow’s business, but I think he understands why I do not want to do so. I expect the situation to be resolved in a short time. As I said, I do not want to be tied down to a day; he has my reassurance that I shall not give a commitment today that I am not prepared to see fulfilled by the Child Support Agency and the Bolton office. Maybe that is being a hostage to fortune, but I do not think so. I hope that he will accept that in the faith in which it is given.

As I said earlier, processing clerically will slow down resolution somewhat, although it should not slow it down as much as the hon. Gentleman suggested. I have received reassurance in Ms Poulton’s case that maintenance contribution deductions from the non-resident parent’s benefits will start as urgently as possible. I have alluded to our progress in transferring clerical cases back to the IT system. It is anticipated that all clerical cases will be transferred during 2008 and 2009. I appreciate that as Ms Poulton’s case started in 1998, that time scale may seem horrendous, but her case will be dealt with separately. The agency has made further consolatory payments, including reimbursement of Ms Poulton’s bank charges, which I understand were significant and were incurred as a result of the breakdown of payments to her. The agency is preparing new accounts to calculate the non-resident parent’s new arrears balance.

Again, I apologise for all the inconvenience caused by the agency in those cases, and I fully recognise that significant underperformance occurred. I accept that a catalogue of unacceptable errors led to the situation between Ms Poulton and the agency. However, I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the main issues in both cases—enforcement, dual cases and clerical processing—are being addressed through the agency’s operational improvement plan. We aim to make further improvements to the scheme’s structure through the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill, which is being considered in Committee. I thank the hon. Gentleman and his constituents for bringing the cases to the House’s attention, and I hope that they are reassured by what I have said and what we have discussed.

I shall highlight some of the improvements that have been and are being made. The Child Support Agency has not performed to the standard that its clients should expect since its inception; the hon. Gentleman quoted the previous Secretary of State’s comments recognising that. As a result, we approved the operational improvement plan, which was launched in March 2006, to improve substantially the service offered by the agency.

The plan’s effects can be seen in the most recent quarterly summary of statistics. Case clearance times have improved—55 per cent. of cases are now cleared within six weeks, and the number of uncleared cases fell by 12 per cent. between September 2006 and March 2007. The agency has also made significant progress in resolving the IT difficulties that have compounded problems in the hon. Gentleman’s constituents’ cases. The most serious defects in its IT systems have been resolved, and the remaining defects are due to be corrected later this year.

The hon. Gentleman was very critical of our Bolton office, but it is now processing more than 35,000 clerical cases. He is right that there were some initial troubles, due largely to the transfer of so much complex work from one organisation to another. However, the Bolton office has now made more than £17.5 million in payments to parents with care and is working hard to get more money to more children as soon as possible. Although I apologise unreservedly for the delays in the cases that he described, we are working hard with the Bolton office to improve substantially and as quickly as possible the service that we offer our clients.

We are also aware that the agency in general and the Bolton office in particular have not provided as satisfactory a level of customer service as we could wish. Under the operational improvement plan, the agency is dedicated to improving client service. A wholesale review of communications, of which the hon. Gentleman was highly critical, is well under way, and noticeable improvements have been made to the agency’s telephony system and service. The operational improvement plan is an important platform on which to build and implement further and more radical changes to the child maintenance system envisaged in the new Bill.

As the House is aware, the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 5 June 2007. It is the next stage in implementing the far-reaching proposals for child maintenance reform set out in the December 2006 White Paper following Sir David Henshaw’s recommendations. It is important that we establish a system that truly delivers for the parents and children who depend on it.

The Minister has given a very reasonable explanation of what the agency is doing, but can she give the House a flavour of how many of the most difficult cases occur in a year? Are they decreasing or not? As for the number of cases in clerical processing, to which the two cases have been added, is it increasing or decreasing?

The latest report from the quarterly summary of statistics indicates an improvement. We hope that that improvement will continue, and the proof of the pudding will be in the next set of quarterly statistics. As for the breakdown of numbers, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not having it to hand, but I shall arrange for that information to be given to him.

The hon. Gentleman has helped us focus on the fact that we need a child maintenance system that responds to the child’s needs and can cope with the complexities that can occur during relationship breakdowns between parents. I was astonished by the complexity of the networks, links and information gathering used in dealing with quite straightforward cases. As he illustrated, his cases are that much more complex, resulting in the problems that he described. That is no excuse, however, for such inefficiency. People should have made the difference in determining the outcome for the individual.

I hope that with my reassurances, the hon. Gentleman will see a resolution to his constituents’ circumstances. Once again, I can only apologise that he has had to bring the cases to the House, and for the inconvenience, distress and anguish caused to his constituents.