IT revamp to boost child support

Problems with the original CSA systems meant billions in payments remain uncollected

The Department for Work and Pensions is set to spend £50m on new IT to replace the beleaguered Child Support Agency (CSA) system that became a byword for government computer failures.

The new system will be run by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), which will replace the CSA as the government body responsible for collecting money from absent parents.

The CMEC was brought into force by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill 2008, which sought to improve and widen the function of the CSA.

“There is no doubt from its original inception in the early 1990s the CSA has had real problems dealing with the problems it was set up to resolve,” then-secretary of state for work and pensions Peter Hain told the House of Commons in 2007.

“We are replacing it with the new commission precisely to start on an entirely new footing.”

Some £3.5bn of maintenance payment has still not been collected by the agency since its inception, 60 per cent of which is now considered uncollectable.

A significant part of the CSA’s problems were IT related.

In 2000, the agency signed a £427m, 10-year contract with supplier EDS to provide the technology to support its work ­ a contract that was later renegotiated twice, in 2002 and 2005, to £456m.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said it has learnt a number of lessons from the CSA IT fiasco, and will be careful to ensure such mistakes are avoided in the new contract.

“We will learn from the experiences of the CSA to provide a system that will provide value for money for taxpayers,” said a spokesman.

There are a number of factors that will help CMEC avoid the pitfalls of its predecessor.

First, and most important, the IT contract will be subject to an early-stage review under Whitehall’s Gateway monitoring process ­ known as Gate Zero.

The start-up phase of the CSA reforms took place before Gate Zero was introduced ­ although the scheme was later subject to two Gateway reviews.

Second, the CMEC will not be going through the same organisational changes that the CSA was enduring.

A National Audit Office report in 2006 found that “coupling development of the IT system with a fundamental re-alignment of the agency’s business arrangements increased the risks to successful delivery”.

Third, the commission also plans to retain some IT expertise in-house. The CSA effectively outsourced all of its IT to EDS, leaving the supplier with the upper hand in negotiations, according to the Public Accounts Committee.

The new contract requires a “technically ready solution” to be delivered and the system will be run by the commission rather than the prospective vendor.

“This is one of the reasons the proposed contract value is so much less than the original EDS contract,” said Butler Group analyst Sarah Burnett. “That and the fact that they are not starting with a completely blank canvas this time.”

The new system is expected to go live in the summer of 2011, shortly after the government's £120m operational improvement plan ­ instigated in 2006 ­ to iron out 500 remaining faults with the CSA IT systems comes to an end.

It will come to no surprise to those familiar with government IT projects that, for a period, the DWP will be paying for both systems at the same time.