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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

moved Amendment No. 47: 47: Clause 5, page 2, line 24, at end insert— ““( ) The provisions of this section shall be provided by members of the Commission staff and be exempt from the provisions of section 8.”” The noble Lord said: We now turn to the question of contracting out. The amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend, and it deals with a vexed question. I have mixed views about contracting out, which is probably reflected in the shape of the amendment. I did this all before Christmas. I was worried, first, about the state of mind of the staff, who the last time I had anything directly to do with them—at a much earlier stage—were extremely concerned about exactly what was going to happen to them. The amendment was tabled so that I would have a guaranteed slot to make representations and seek assurances from the Minister that members of staff were being properly kept advised of what the Government and the commission may have in mind in relation to the exercise of these powers. The question in Amendment No. 56 deals with the assurance that might be provided by independent audits before any such powers were made use of. Amendment No. 57 looks at the prospect of getting regulations laid in advance of any contracting-out provisions being enacted. David Henshaw made great play on the question of opting out. His concept was that the commission would be a commissioning body and not very much more than that. I see the force of that argument, in that there should be a dedicated professional service which should be efficient above all else, delivering the level of service that the parents with care, in particular, would expect. But for my money, although I am a bit ambivalent about it, I think that it should still be a public service in its essence. That does not mean to say that at the margins there might not be occasions when it is demonstrably shown that the private sector can do things better, such as tracing parents. That is a small niche activity that could conceivably be considered sensibly for contracting-out. The evidence that we have to date, such as the debt collection service, some of which we have privatised, had an early flush of success when the bailiffs’ letters started coming through front doors. But although the Minister may say that it is too early to judge, and I might be prepared to accept that, the early results are not good in terms of collection rates for arrears that have been put into the private service for debt collection. In that regard, the move towards privatisation has not been demonstrably more successful than the professionals who are already working hard, have the experience and know what they are doing in the agency. Another example is the experience of Vertex in Bolton, which was set up as a great experiment. The private sector was going to bring in efficiency savings and David Henshaw, rather naively, seemed to think that all you needed was a professional money collection service. In other parts of the commercial world, they are demonstrably more successful than the Child Support Agency, but that naively ignores the determination of this client group—namely, non-resident parents—to avoid the responsibilities at every conceivable point, in some cases. It is a minority but they are a dedicated minority, and there are some who feel so strongly about what they are being asked to pay that they will go to any lengths, including going to jail, to try to avoid their responsibilities. The Henshaw analysis ignores that dimension of that tricky problem. With the Vertex experience of running the Bolton centre, looking at stuck and manual cases, the information that I have from people working with and within that centre is that the experience has not been a happy one. The stuck cases are still stuck and the manual cases are still manual, and the really difficult ones tend to come back to the people who really know what they are doing at the regional centres. That is what I am told. Again, that may be the early experience. Maybe it is early days, and if we are patient this may all work out in the long run and privatisation will prove its worth. If I was a professional working within the agency, I do not think that I would have any confidence, given the experience that I am aware of to date, that privatisation helps. The Minister may say that this is all up to the commission. That is his fallback defence for everything. The commission can look at this, and maybe it will and maybe it will not. For my money, I would want clear demonstrations that the privatisation powers in the provisions could effect significant step changes in the service levels before I had got anywhere near them. Why? It is because it demotivates the professionals already in the service who are doing this job against very difficult odds and providing a dedicated public service. The fact that they are public servants is important to them. The fact that this work can be taken away from them and given to people who in their opinion do not know what they are doing does not make them any more reconciled or increase their job satisfaction. That has been my experience as I have gone around. I am absolutely prepared to be attacked again by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for having technically incompetent, or whatever, amendments. I do not care about that. The important thing is that the subject is raised and that it is understood by the commission that if it is to be given this power it can only be used very carefully, if at all, and it can be used only where it is going to demonstrate evident efficiencies that are clear for all to see. If we do not do that, we risk ticking off the whole body of staff—and they do not deserve that because they have been working so hard for so long to try to keep the service going through some very difficult times. The issue is not the wording or the defence of the fine print of the amendment, it is the very important issue of sending a clear signal not just to those non-resident parents who are in the main eliding the service, but also to the staff that they are not going to be second-guessed by private contractors who really do not know what they are doing and who create messes which the public servants in the service then have to spend time clearing up. It is against that background that I move Amendment No. 47. I beg to move.