Mrs G’s account
8. Mrs G’s maintenance account moved from the Child Support Agency (CSA) to CMS in March 2017. The CMS replaced the CSA and the child maintenance cases for which it was responsible were gradually transferred over. She tells us her CSA account was in arrears at the point it was transferred because the CSA had not acted to collect money owed to her.
9. We make final decisions on complaints and need to see that the organisation involved has had a chance to look at what someone says it has done wrong. In the case of the CSA and CMS, we also need to see that the ICE has had a chance to consider what may have gone wrong and what the organisations may need to do to put things right.
10. Mrs G told us she made a number of earlier complaints to the CSA, with the help of her MP, and shared letters showing what it told her in 2009 and 2012. These show the CSA agreed it needed to do more to collect maintenance owed to her and it would take steps to reimburse Mrs G. They also show arrears that built up at that time are not the same arrears as those that built up in 2017, which were transferred to CMS.
11. As we cannot see that Mrs G raised a complaint about why her CSA account was in arrears, we cannot consider whether this happened due to mistakes or poor service on its part. If Mrs G has specific concerns about actions taken by CSA in this time period, she may wish to take these concerns to the CMS. The amount of time that has passed means the CMS may not agree to look at these events or it may be limited in how far it can investigate, but it will only be able to consider this when asked to by Mrs G. As such, this part of her complaint is not ready for us to consider.
Issues during 2017
12. £1,273.24 of CSA arrears were carried over to Mrs G’s CMS account in March 2017. It then took two months for CMS to complete the initial CMS maintenance calculation. In May it told the paying parent to begin making monthly payments of £392.37. He made the required payments in May and June but then asked the CMS to reconsider the payments he needed to make because his income had drastically reduced. In July CMS agreed his income had changed and he should be on a ‘nil assessment’, meaning he did not need to pay ongoing maintenance. This also meant it did not expect him to make payments towards his arrears.
13. We can see that after the CMS told Mrs G the paying parent did not need to make regular payments, there were delays in it calculating and telling her what arrears were owed. It acknowledged it got this wrong a number of times and said this was a result of problems with its computer system after the case was closed.
14. Mrs G asked CMS to change its decision that the paying parent did not need to make regular payments, shortly after being told about its decision in July 2017. She complained this change was inconsistent with what was known about the paying parent’s income, which had been over £60,000 only two months before. The paying parent reported that he owned his own business and had stopped taking any earnings from it. He told CMS he instead expected to be supported by his partner.
15. When it reviewed the evidence Mrs G shared and the points she was making, the CMS could not see any evidence that the paying parent was doing anything wrong or misreporting his income. We appreciate he reported a significant drop in income and this was surprising and worrying for Mrs G. Having reviewed everything very carefully, we have not seen anything in the evidence Mrs G shared that shows CMS made mistakes in reaching its decision. This is because we considered the publicly available information on the paying parent’s business and this does not show that he was taking earnings from his business. From what we can see, the CMS was making appropriate decisions based on the evidence available and in line with our Principles.
16. Mrs G also complained that CMS delayed calculating and pursing the arrears. She said the delay calculating and acting on these arrears meant she did not receive the payments she should have. In addition to the £1,424.83 CSA arrears, payments due for March and April 2017 as part of the CMS calculation should have been added to the total owed to her. The total arrears of £1,819.08 were correctly calculated and recorded on CMS’ computer system from September 2019 onwards. Mrs G had questioned that total before then and been given the wrong amount by CMS. The total arrears could have been worked out and shared with Mrs G sooner and by not doing this the CMS failed to act in line with its Customer Charter that says it will be responsive and give the right information.
17. The age of Mrs G’s son meant the paying parent would not have had to pay any maintenance from September 2017. After this date, CMS only needed to get payment of arrears.
18. CMS has no record of contact with Mrs G between July 2017 and June 2018. Mrs G wrote to ask it to look into these arrears in June 2018. CMS should have responded to this letter, in line with its Customer Charter commitment to be responsive. Mrs G contacted CMS again in August and September 2019 and it did then look into the arrears. It quoted the wrong amount of arrears when it spoke to her on 24 September, although it did identify and try to correct its error the same day.
19. CMS would still only expect paying parents to make payments towards arrears when they had enough income to do so. Part of CMS’s role is to make sure maintenance is paid in good time and where it knows payment of arrears has been suspended, it should check whether there are any changes that mean payments should begin. Our Principles say organisations need to be aware of their statutory responsibilities and for the CMS this includes a responsibility to make sure paying parents are meeting their responsibilities, in line with the basic principles of the Child Support Act 1991. The CMS guidance ‘Caseworker manual: suspend/unsuspend liabilities’ says that where the collection of arrears has been paused, CMS should review the arrangement at least every 12 months.
20. CMS did not contact the paying parent to ask him to begin paying the arrears until October 2019. The paying parent challenged that request, saying he still did not have enough income. After reviewing the information it had, which included evidence from a maintenance arrangement for another child, the CMS confirmed he did not need to make payments yet.
21. Despite Mrs G making more requests to CMS for payment of the arrears to begin in November 2019 and January 2020, CMS did not find that the paying parent’s income had increased enough so that he should making payments until June 2020. It made that decision based on the information it received as part of a separate maintenance arrangement.
22. Almost three years passed without any payments being made but the evidence shows this was because of the paying parent’s income, not due to a CMS error. We can see the CMS needed to look into whether payments could be made in 2017 and 2018, in line with its Caseworker manual guidance. This says the paying parent’s ability to pay should be reviewed on the annual review date, which was every March in Mrs G’s case. There is no evidence of those checks being done in Mrs G’s CMS record. But, we can also see that any checks would have found the paying parent did not have income for him to be asked to make payments, so checks would not have made any difference.
23. CMS then decided the paying parent should begin making payments of £20 a month. In August 2020, in response to Mrs G’s comments about the amount she was owed, it increased the amount to be paid each month to £50. Mrs G has continued to receive payments since then.
24. The evidence shows CMS also asked the paying parent to increase his arrears payments in July 2020, but the paying parent declined. CMS considered the payments should be higher and its ‘Decision Makers Guide’ says it should ask paying parents to clear arrears in two years, unless this is not possible. The paying parent decided not to and CMS did not take further action. This is because it made a policy decision not to use enforcement powers during the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning it could not use its powers to collect higher payments than the paying parent wished to make. This is explained in its ‘Leaders’ Briefing CV19 dates’ guidance which shows it suspended some activities after the pandemic began and it would not be able to take enforcement action. But, as noted above, it did ask the paying parent again in August and at that point he agreed.
25. Mrs G complains CMS should still do more to put things right for her. To decide what appropriate action would be, we consider the impact any mistakes had on Mrs G and her situation. We also consider what CMS has already done to address her complaint.
26. Having carefully considered the above, we can see these issues with CMS’s service:
• it did not respond to a letter she sent in June 2018 • it gave incorrect information about the arrears owed to her, until it calculated the right figure in September 2019.
27. Neither action was in line with the applicable guidance and standards of service referred to above. We appreciate Mrs G felt it made many other mistakes, but having considered what happened we can see these are the times where it failed to follow its guidance.
28. Mrs G told us the mistakes meant she did not get the maintenance payments she should have since 2017 and she has had the stress and inconvenience of chasing payments since then. We appreciate she told us this had on impact on her family and she is deeply concerned by the poor service she received for that reason.
29. We have not seen that the evidence available shows that the mistakes we found led to the significant impact Mrs G describes. We recognise she would have been stressed and frustrated when CMS said she was not owed as much as she thought she was. But, this was not the reason CMS were unable to collect any arrears for her. Although she did not get the explanations she should have after writing to CMS in June 2018, the evidence shows CMS would not have been able to arrange payment of the arrears at that time. She made repeated requests for CMS to arrange payment of what she was owed, but it was not CMS error that stopped that happening. It was the paying parent’s low income that stopped that happening.
30. CMS looked at many complaints from Mrs G throughout 2019 and 2020. It offered to pay £100 in July 2020 because it recognised it had not responded to the letter she sent in June 2018 and it had given the wrong figure for arrears many times. It correctly recognised that those errors caused her avoidable frustration and we agree this is the impact its mistakes had. We recognise Mrs G does not think this is enough to put right the difficulties she faced. Having considered everything available to us, we can see this was an appropriate payment, in line with the DWP’s ‘Financial redress for maladministration: staff guide’.
31. As CMS did not make mistakes that stopped Mrs G getting the relevant arrears in child maintenance and it has offered a payment to put right the frustration and distress its mistakes caused, we have decided to take no further action. We know Mrs G continues to feel frustrated and upset by her experience. We hope we have clearly set out how we reached our decision in this case.