Vinovium House — House of Commons, 2017-03-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have sat with Child Maintenance Service officers, listening to the calls that they make to non-resident parents. My first visit as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pension was to the north-east. I went to Cobalt House and saw the Child Maintenance Service in action. I have also been to the compliance unit in Hastings. She is right that those discussions are not easy—they are negotiations. That is something the staff made very clear to me. I want her to understand that one of my highest priorities is ensuring that we keep the money flowing to the children who are owed it by their non-resident parents. I emphasise the need to cleanse the cases on the old CSA system that we are transferring to the new CMS caseload. While compliance work is immediate and happens, the arrears cleanse process can be undertaken as resources are available. We will, therefore, be able to flex our rate of cleanse in line with the amount of resources needed, to ensure that compliance work is not affected The overriding story to be told about the child maintenance group is one of immense improvement. All ongoing maintenance liabilities, like those managed by Vinovium House, will be managed by the Child Maintenance Service once all case closure is complete. We are seeing non-resident parents contributing to maintenance liability in seven out of eight cases. That has resulted in nearly 90% of the money due being paid towards the liability. Arrears growth is slowing and is down to 13% of total liability from 17% in 2015. Those figures reflect the Department’s commitment to improving the performance of the Child Maintenance Service We have made a number of changes in line with the recommendations of the Henshaw report. We have simplified the administration of the service; we have made our calculations faster and simpler through the use of HMRC income information; and we have introduced new applications in a staged pathfinder approach to ensure smooth delivery of the new scheme. All of those measures have put collaboration between parents and increased parental responsibility at the heart of the Child Maintenance Service. I am proud to say that, according to the latest figures, approximately 250,000 children are benefiting from maintenance, in part due to the excellent work of the DWP’s child maintenance service The proposed changes—I emphasise to the hon. Lady that they are proposed changes—are the result of careful analysis and planning. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns about the proposals and thank her again for this debate, but the rationale for them is very clear: Vinovium House is currently only 64% utilised, and across the whole DWP estate 20% of the occupied space is underutilised. We are striving towards a more modern, dynamic DWP estate. That will ensure that we continue to have sufficient flexible capacity and to deliver the best services we can to our customers. To that end, we are considering whether the work currently undertaken at Vinovium House could be redistributed across the existing DWP network. In the event that that course of action is required, we would expect it to have no impact on the services we continue to provide to child maintenance group users. It is important to stress again that the closure of Vinovium House is still only a proposal at this stage, and we are continuing the consultation process with our staff to assess how each of them might be affected Question put and agreed to.