Make the CSA work or scrap it, says Huhne

4.43.50pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 28th Nov 2005

Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne has written to the Prime Minister asking him to publish the strategic review of the Child Support Agency (CSA) following its delay and his comments to the House of Commons that the CSA was not 'properly suited to perform its tasks'.

Chris Huhne said: "The Prime Minister promised in 1998 that he was urgently looking at reform of the CSA. But the agency is now in even greater chaos than it was then as I know from week to week complaints in my advice surgery. The Prime Minister needs to make the CSA work or scrap it.

"More than £3 billion is owed to children but remains uncollected; more than 35,000 compensation payments have been made over the last few years for maladministration; and hundreds of thousands of cases remain unassessed with the average wait for these cases is 448 days.

"I have written to the Prime Minister urging that he publish the strategic review conducted by the new Chief Executive of the CSA. We were expecting it to be published this week.

"We will consider the proposals of the review on their merit, but considering the number of cases I have seen over the last few months alone, the CSA is viewed with such despair and contempt by those who come into contact with it that we must now scrap it altogether.

"Its functions could be transferred to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs so it can best serves those who are trying to pay their maintenance and properly pursue those who are not"

"I am frankly astonished by the stream of mistakes that the CSA makes on cases that come to me, and action is well overdue. This is a bureaucratic scandal" said Mr Huhne.