Contents

• Secretary's introduction
• Table of contents
• User guide
• Accessibility
• Acronyms
• Glossary

Part 2: Achievements and challenges–performance insights

Helping parents support their children – the Child Support Agency

The Child Support Agency (CSA) was established in 1988 to administer the Australian Government's Child Support Scheme. The scheme aims to ensure that separated parents share in the cost of supporting their children according to their capacity. CSA's role includes registration and assessment of child support, and the collection and transfer of child support payments for parents unable to do this privately.

By 30 June 2004, approximately 1.3 million parents had registered with CSA. Over 680 000 parents registered for private collection and 630 000 for CSA collection. This resulted in child support payments of over $2.1 billion for the benefit of some 1.1 million children.

The year 2003–04 has been a busy and productive one for CSA. The agency has built on the solid foundation established in previous years, which saw the introduction of integrated information technology, national telephone systems and improved workload scheduling, resulting in greater responsiveness to client needs. The CSA has worked to better promote its strategic intent of increasing parental self-reliance and independence by further investing in strategies and interventions designed to promote sound parenting, financial and relationship management skills. Projects include the Newly Separated Unemployed Parents initiative 'Staying Connected' (a workplace program) and the expansion of CSA's separation support products and services. CSA's success in this area can be seen in the continuous rise in the proportion of customers in private collect, to almost 52 per cent (see Figure 8).

CSA has successfully addressed the growth in gross maintenance debt of the previous five years through a deliberate focus on increasing the capacity and capability of CSA staff in the area of debt collection. In particular, CSA has significantly reduced domestic gross maintenance debt by $13 million in 2003–04. The Intensive Debt Collection (IDC) Budget Initiative and collaborative efforts with international child support partners have also contributed to reducing CSA debt (see Figure 9).

Figure 8 Growth in private collect cases, 1994–2004 (Text description)

The collection rate for CSA-collect cases since the inception of the Child Support Scheme is now 89.2 per cent, while the total transfer rate (including private collect cases) is 95.4 per cent. In 2003–04, $2.1 billion was transferred between parents for the benefit of children. Around $1.3 billion of this was transferred directly between parents and $790 million was transferred through collections.

CSA focused its efforts in 2003–04 in four broad areas of business priority–stakeholders, parents, people and corporate governance–to address feedback received from agency stakeholders, parents and staff.

Figure 9 Domestic gross maintenance debt and Intensive Debt Collection, 2003–04 (Text description)

CSA stakeholders

CSA plays a lead role in working with other organisations in the family law system (including both government and non-government agencies) to encourage parents to access the range of services that help them build independence and self-reliance in meeting their child support responsibilities.

CSA has contributed to the outcomes of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs Inquiry into Child Custody Arrangements in the Event of Family Separation.

CSA parents

CSA continued to be committed to providing quality customer service in 2003–04 in a number of ways.

• CSA has made substantial inroads in managing and reducing the growth of debt. The IDC Budget Initiative, targeting 'hard debt', has been part of the success in reversing previous trends of rising debt levels and resulted in contact with some 15 100 parents and the collection of an additional $19.3 million in child support payments.
• CSA continued to exceed its client service standards with a call answer rate of over 91 per cent within 30 seconds. CSA developed and launched its new Client Service Charter and Staff Charter support package.
• CSA implemented a public sector first with the introduction of a national customer feedback program known as Clients Having a Say (CHAS) via the telephone system.
• The 'Me and My' series, a collection of self-help booklets, has been updated and expanded to include additional educational resources. The series includes:
  • Me and My Kids: Parenting from a Distance
  • Me and My Money–a revamped booklet on money management, with tips and hints on how to stretch your dollar further after separation
  • What about Me?–to be released in the second half of 2004, this booklet addresses the linkages between separation and emotional wellbeing

The series will be expanded further with the introduction of two new booklets in 2004–05 that deal with how parents can better manage relationships with the other parent and their new partners.

Two titles from the successful 'Me and My' series.

• CSA, in partnership with the NSW-based community organisation Interrelate, designed an innovative workplace program for separated fathers, 'Staying Connected'. This program is designed to address the needs of members of this at-risk group by helping them to look after themselves, build a businesslike relationship with the other parent, and develop strategies to build positive relationships with their children post-'separation.

  

This program was successfully piloted with Australia Post and the Australian Defence Force.

• The Newly Separated Unemployed Parents initiative commenced in July 2003 and will operate over the next four years. Consultation with other government organisations, community groups and parents has been completed. The project will support 31 500 newly separated non-resident parents receiving Newstart Allowance to improve their parenting and relationship skills and increase their motivation to return to the paid workforce.
• The Direct Telephone Support Service (DTSS) pilot–funded by the Department of Health and Ageing National Suicide Prevention Strategy–supports separated parents through a direct telephone referral process. This involves CSA client service officers in an initial three-way telephone hook-up with the parent and the telephone counselling service. On-referrals are primarily to relationship counselling and legal services. At the end of the 2003–04 pilot period 3323 parents in the Queensland region were transferred at the conclusion of their call.

Professionalism

CSA conducted its annual Professionalism Survey in May 2004. This program measures and tracks CSA parents' perceptions of the professionalism of CSA staff, a key corporate outcome in CSA's Agency Agreement. A national telephone survey of approximately 600 CSA parents indicated significant improvements in all four components of the Professionalism Index–personal characteristics, client treatment, professional characteristics, and outcomes of the interaction (see Figure 10).

The results in May 2004 showed a significant increase in the level of customer satisfaction from the May 2003 survey. The result of 3.8 is not only a significant improvement from the result achieved in 2003, but it also exceeds the target of 3.7 and represents the highest result achieved since the survey began in 1998. Significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction were achieved for both payers and payees.

CSA people

CSA continued to build and increase staff capability by introducing business coaching to client service officers. In order to evaluate the success of this and other strategies, CSA conducted its fifth survey of corporate health (an employee work satisfaction survey) in December 2003. The findings indicate that corporate health generally remains buoyant in CSA. However, some clear areas for improvement have been identified. For example, the survey indicated that the lowest rated characteristic of the 23 able to be benchmarked between 2001 and 2003 concerned the Procedural Justice (job appointments) component questions. CSA has developed strategies to address these areas for improvement.

The year 2003–04 also saw the continuation of CSA's disengagement from some services provided by the Tax Office. Some of these services have been (or soon will be) brought in-house or provided by other external service providers.

Figure 10 The four components of the CSA Professionalism Index (Text description)

Corporate governance

CSA continued to incorporate business excellence principles into all areas of the organisation, maintaining its focus on continuous improvement.

Strategies outlined in CSA's 2003–04 Business Plan were the direct result of opportunities for improvement identified in the feedback report from CSA's 2001 Australian Business Excellence Awards submission and other external reports. During this year CSA conducted an organisational self-assessment against business excellence principles. The opportunities for improvement identified were incorporated into 2004–05 planning.

Awards

In November 2003, CSA was presented with a Silver Award for its submission, Supporting Parents through Separation, in the Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Sector Management. This award aims to encourage and recognise better practice and innovation in government–in particular, the achievements of public sector work groups, units and teams with a focus on specific projects, initiatives or change processes.

The award was presented to CSA for its achievement in developing and piloting innovative products and services over four years to meet the needs of separated parents.

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