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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I thank noble Lords for tabling these amendments, which raise interesting points. On Amendments Nos. 54 and 55, which relate to agency arrangements, perhaps I may explain why we have included agency arrangement provisions in the Bill. As a statutory body, the commission will have only the powers conferred on it by statute. The provisions under Clause 7 allow the commission to set up closer working arrangements with other public bodies. A current example is the co-operation between the Child Support Agency and its counterpart in Northern Ireland. Looking forward, the commission might decide to work with the Department for Children, Schools and Families as part of a wider initiative to provide information to parents, which we have just debated. The agency arrangement provisions would enable, for example, other departments to provide child maintenance information to the public on the commission’s behalf, or vice versa, in respect of information that it seeks to disseminate. I am not sure that it is possible to put the definition of the words ““relevant authority”” much clearer than in Clause 7(4), the provision to which the noble Baroness directed me. There is clarity and the interpretation of that provision would be well understood. Amendments Nos. 56 and 57 seek to prevent the commission from contracting out work unless two criteria have been met; namely, that Parliament has given approval to the detailed provisions of the contract and that an independent audit has first been performed to ensure that contracting out represents long-term value for money. I now turn to issues relating to staff at the CSA. I shall use this opportunity to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said. Like him, I have visited a number of centres and have always been impressed by the professionalism, dedication and commitment of the staff at the CSA. On my first ministerial visit about a year ago, I did not expect it to be like that, given the difficult backdrop that the CSA has encountered in the popular press. So I take this opportunity to give credit and to acknowledge that work that it has done. On Amendments Nos. 56 and 57, I believe that the noble Lord seeks to ensure that future contracts contain robust provisions that will lead to successful, efficient delivery and provide adequate redress for poor performance. Those are important points, but I do not believe the proposed amendments are the best way to achieve those goals. This Bill makes it clear that the responsibility for efficiently and effectively discharging functions rests with the commission even if those functions are contracted out. As such, the commission is already bound by this Bill to ensure that any decision to contract out represents value for money; and it will be a priority for the commission to make sure that the terms of any contract are rigorous enough to enable them to ensure effective performance. In order to meet this legal requirement, in the initial stages of considering whether one of its functions should be contracted out, the commission will undertake a comprehensive review of those functions. Value for money is one of the standard criteria for such a review and would always be taken into consideration. If the commission decides to contract work out, it would have to adhere to government procurement rules which require any government procurement exercise to be open, fair and transparent. They also require that, when evaluating any response to a tender, one of the main criteria should be whether the contract would provide value for money. I recognise that this does not add up to a full independent audit of any decision to contract out. However, in view of the safeguards already in place we consider that such a requirement would be unnecessary. On occasion, the commission may contract out work of a very low value. It may do so to assess the benefits that a larger scale exercise could bring. Having to complete a full, independent audit beforehand would not represent an effective use of taxpayers’ money. However, for significant outsourcing we might expect the commission to seek an independent audit to prove that it is meeting the legislative requirements already placed on it. With reference to Amendment No. 57, it is also difficult to see how the process of laying contractual terms before Parliament would work in practice. Contractual terms are often commercially confidential and it would not be appropriate to subject these to the public scrutiny given to affirmative regulations. As we have discussed, the commission will be led by an independent board which is expert in what it does. I believe it is the body best placed to determine appropriate terms of individual contracts and will bring in any expert advice it feels that it needs. Surely, Parliament’s role is to hold the Secretary of State to account for the overall performance of the commission. It is supported in doing so by the comprehensive reporting requirements set out in Clause 9, which will cover any functions contracted out. In light of this, and given the importance of agency arrangements in helping to make joined-up work across the public sector possible, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. Picking up on a couple of specific points that the noble Lord raised about where contracting out has occurred, we know that the Vertex experience was a challenge, certainly initially, but we should recognise that contracting out clerical cases to the private sector—Vertex in Bolton—is already helping to get more money to more children. Since December 2006, Vertex has arranged and collected more than £30 million in maintenance payments. This is the first time that one of the department’s agencies has contracted out core work on this scale and, as with any significant change, some areas have not progressed as smoothly as wanted. Clearly, the lessons from that need to be learnt and factored into any future proposals for contracting. On contracting out to debt collection agencies, £9.3 million has been collected, so that is making a real contribution to getting more money for more children. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.