Report signals the end for the Child Support Agency

1.09.49pm GMT Wed 26th Jan 2005

A report by MPs calling for the Child Support Agency to be scrapped, if it does not improve, has been warmly welcomed by one of the CSA biggest critics Liz Lynne MEP.

The West Midlands Euro-MP has been campaigning to scrap the agency since she was Liberal Democrat Social Security

Spokesperson in the House of Commons more than a decade ago.

Speaking following the publication of today's report she said:

"When I was an MP I was inundated with constituents who had been badly treated by the Child Support Agency. It is incredible that little has changed in the last ten years. It has been a huge waste of taxpayers money and been totally ineffective in its aims. This report should now be the end of road for the agency.

"The Act ruined some relationships between non-resident parents, usually the father, and their children, caused emotional harm to children and even caused some fathers to commit suicide. The problem with the system is that it was based on a formula. You cannot possibly take all the cases together, each case must be judged on an individual basis.

"The Child Support Agency has been failing families and especially children for far too long now. It has never had the support of resident or non resident parents and successive governments have failed to get a grip on the whole Child Support system. All that has been done is the constant tinkering with the system, ministers must now accept that it is time to scrap the agency and start again."

ENDS