Government tenders for £50m child support system

A new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission system is intended to be operational by 2011

The government is planning to spend up to £50m on an IT system for the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the successor to the Child Support Agency.

The Commission has put out a tender notice for an IT solution to support its new statutory maintenance scheme, which will provide benefits based on the latest available tax information from HM Revenue & Customs.

The system is intended to be operational by 2011, and will be required to handle case management, case assessment and payment calculations.

The contract will cover the provision of all software and associated technology, including the design, development and testing of the system.

It will also cover the handover of the product to a hosting provider in preparation for live running, and technical backup for a for a three-month period after it goes live.

The Child Support Agency, which the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission replaces, has been plagued by IT problems.

Its £456m IT system, set up by EDS, had 500 faults three years after it went live, and is still being overhauled. In 2005 the Agency spent 70p collecting every £1 it was owed.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said last year: " The government must keep an iron grip on this new organisation to ensure that the lessons have been learned from the Child Support Agency debacle."

It is not yet clear how the new system will sit with existing Child Support Agency systems.