Record complaints about NI child support agency

The Northern Ireland Child Support Agency has faced more complaints about its services in the past year than at any time since it was established, a report revealed today.

British government watchdog Jodi Berg said more complaints than ever had also been referred to her.

Ms Berg, the Independent Case Examiner is the ultimate point of complaint when all others have been exhausted.

In her annual report she said that across the UK the offices of the Child Support Agency had struggled to respond adequately to customers and come to grips with reforms which were supposed to improve the service.

It had been a difficult year for the agency, she said. It had long been accepted that the old Child Support scheme needed revision because too often people had been left dissatisfied with the service and, more importantly, their children did not receive the maintenance they needed to improve the quality of their lives.

“The introduction of the Child Support Reforms promised much simpler legislation, slick processes and customer focussed services,” said Ms Berg.

She acknowledged the many difficulties the Agency encountered with the new computer system it has been provided with to help it improve its services.

However she said: “While there have been achievements, the problems faced by the Agency in Northern Ireland and its counterparts in Great Britain have been of such magnitude that two years after the introduction of the reforms there is still no published date for the conversion of old scheme cases onto new rules.

“This is a real disappointment.”

The only glimmer of hope for customers in Northern Ireland came with her comment: “The Northern Ireland Agency has continued to lead the way in providing people with the best service possible in difficult circumstances.

“Its response to complaints is on the whole focussed and timely.”

Nevertheless she said the Agency “does not place parents at the heart of its activities” and she called for a “radical rethink” of service provision.

Ms Berg also handles complaints against the Social Security Agency , which she said continued to impress with the quality of its complaints handling, despite considerable administrative changes.

Administrative changes could often result in an increase in the number of complaints about an organisation, she said.

“It is to the agency’s credit that this has not occurred. Indeed, it has bucked this trend, as the number of referrals to my office has decreased.

“This demonstrates that the agency takes customer complaints seriously and takes the extra steps necessary to put matters right.”

Responding to the report the Northern Ireland Child Support Agency said it continued to face a number of challenges as it strove to ensure non-resident parents fulfilled their financial responsibilities for their children.

It said: “Business performance is improving, though. More money was paid out to parents with care in 2004/05 compared with 2003/04.

“Steps are being taken to further improve the speed of processing applications, the amount of money collected and the level of customer satisfaction with the agency.”