Overhaul of the CSA

The underlying causes of the problems with the Child Support Agency's (CSA) current performance are deep rooted and complex. It was announced on 9 February 2006 that an operational improvement plan has been agreed with Ministers to improve the Agency's performance while work to redesign future policy and delivery arrangements was undertaken. The aim of the plan was to improve service to clients, increase the amount of money collected, achieve greater compliance from non-resident parents and provide a better platform from which to implement evolving policy in the future. The plan was designed to deliver improving performance over 3 years. The Agency would be publishing its new client service standards in April 2006 and hoped to see the benefits from April 2007 onwards.

The operational improvement plan is intended to stabilise and improve the performance of the agency over the next 3 years and will go into action immediately. The announcement came after an operational review of the Agency conducted by the outgoing Chief Executive, Stephen Geraghty. A summary of his findings and the operational improvement plan are available on the CSA website at http://www.csa.gov.uk/new/oip/.