News In Focus
6 February 2006
CSA set to avoid the chop
The Child Support Agency looks set to survive the current fundamental review of its operations, it is reported today.
The Scotsman discloses that despite its major failings the CSA, which costs more to run than the payments it recovers from absent parents and has a £3 billion backlog of uncollected maintenance, is not to be abolished.
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is said to have decided that abolition would disrupt the arrangements for the half million children who currently receive payments through the CSA.
Although the Liberal Democrats have called for the Agency's abolition and the transfer of its functions to the Inland Revenue, the government will instead opt for a restructure with new powers to investigate parents' finances and engaging private debt collectors to enforce payment.