Action to help single mums

Harman defends her plans on BBC Radio's Today programme Dur: 4'00"

Initiative on Absent Fathers

The Department of Social Security says it wants to ensure the CSA provides an efficient and effective service.

The tough new targets for the CSA were announced in the Commons by the Social Security Secretary Harriet Harman.

She told the Commons she was looking for "substantial and sustained improvements" in the agency's performance after a chorus of criticism since it was set up.

The emphasis is to be put on "getting more maintenance paid, reducing the backlog and improving customers service," she said.

Opening a debate on the CSA, Ms Harman said the improvements she expected to see included;

• Extra phone lines, some of them for out-of-hours calls, to ensure prompter service for callers.
• An extra 500,000 maintenance assessments to be completed by the end of the year.
• Better accuracy of assessments after many were found to be wrong.

"We will pursue absent fathers who ignore their responsibilities as parents with the same vigour and determination as we show in tracking down people who don't pay tax," pledged Ms Harman.

Harman: Ensure fathers pay up

Reacting to the news, the Shadow Social Security Secretary, Peter Lilley demanded greater detail on how the Government was intending to reform the CSA.

"Is it going to place a lesser burden on husbands and absent parents and thereby reduce the amount of money received by the parent with care?" he demanded.

"Or is it going to give more help to the parent with care and relieve further the taxpayer's contribution, where the absent parent has the means to pay?" he asked.

Mr Lilley, who oversaw the formation of the CSA, said the least the Government could do was explain how their plans were fairer.

There had been suggestions that the Government might scrap the CSA. But the Social Security Secretary has said this is out of the question.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said it was important that its performance in extracting money from absent fathers was improved significantly.

"Our starting point is we want better standards of living for children. Children in families where the parents don't live together tend to be much worse off," she said.

"There are two ways of doing that, mothers being able to work, and the fathers paying. Fathers paying means we must have substantial improvement in the way the CSA does its job because too many fathers are not paying," she insisted.

Lone parent groups welcome the initiative. But they say mothers on benefit should be allowed to keep some maintenance rather than seeing it all go to the state.

There was also a positive response from the CSA. "The agency welcomes the further commitment that has been given to the principle that absent parents take proper financial responsibility for their children and that it is unacceptable for them to attempt to evade this liability," said a spokesman.

"This has come at an important time for the agency as we enter the next phase in the development of our business which will build on the solid foundations laid," he added.

The agency conceded there were "too many justified complaints" about the CSA's standards of customer service, and it was taking a number of initiatives, including revising the arrangements for handling complaints and aiming to clear its backlog of cases in the next two years.