Service levels and client charter
We aim to be professional and responsive, helpful and courteous in all our dealings with clients. We have set minimum standards of service which we aim to meet in each of our main business areas. These standards are set out here. If we do not reach these standards, we will do our best to keep you informed and explain what is happening.
Purpose Aim and Values
Our Purpose - Arranging, Collecting and Paying Out Money for More Children.
Our Aim - To be recognised as a Division which delivers a high quality service to customers and staff.
The Executive’s aim is for all parents to contribute to the financial support of their children, thereby contributing to the reduction of child poverty. To achieve this aim,
We support parents in taking responsibility for their children by:
- tracing parents who no longer live with their children (the non-resident parent) in cases where the parent residing with the children (the parent with care) wants support in seeking maintenance, or is required by benefits rules to seek such support;
- working out how much child maintenance should be paid by the non-resident parent, to help meet their child’s everyday living costs;
- (In some cases) handling the payments from the non-resident parent to the parent with care; and
- monitoring these payments and taking appropriate enforcement action where payments are late or missed.
Our Values - The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division has a set of values to influence how everyone in the Agency will act. The values are key to supporting the delivery of our Operational Improvement Project and are core to all of our processes and actions.
- We care about our customers,
- We value and develop our staff,
- We are open, honest, fair and impartial,
- We accept responsibility for our actions,
- We work as one team,
- We strive to improve everything we do.
What you can expect from us
First contact
- Within 18 weeks - we aim to make an accurate decision about the application within 18 weeks. In some cases we may be unable to do this (for example, if we do not have the right contact details for the non-resident parent). In this situation we will try to track the non-resident parent down as quickly as we can, but it might take us longer to process applications like these.
Payments
- Within six weeks - in cases where we handle payments of child maintenance, we aim to get the first payment to the parent with care within six weeks of agreeing payments with the non-resident parent
Enforcement
If we have passed a case to our specialist enforcement team and we need to take action through the courts, our first step will be to get a 'liability order' from the magistrates' court. A liability order is legal proof that there is a debt to be paid. It allows us to take further action to get the money owed.
We will then register the liability order with the Enforcement of Judgments Office, which can use methods available to them to enforce payment of the debt through the courts to get the money that is owed.
If the debt is still not paid, we can apply to the courts for the non-resident parent to be sent to prison. We can also ask for the non-resident parent's driving licence to be taken away, or to stop them from getting one.
Response times
- Within one minute - we aim to answer phone calls within one minute
- Within 20 days - we aim to either solve your complaint, or agree with you the next steps we will take within20 days.
Complaints
If you are not happy about the service you have received from us you can make a complaint. To make a complaint you should first phone or write to the team dealing with your case, or the team manager. You can find their contact details on any letter they have sent you.
If you feel that the issues raised in your complaint have not been settled to your satisfaction by the people dealing with your case, you should contact the Complaints Resolution Team at the office that is dealing with your application.
If you think we have made the wrong decision
If you do not agree with a decision we have made about how much child maintenance should be paid you can ask us to look at the matter again. You can also ask us to explain how we made the decision. Please contact the office you have been dealing with within a month of getting the letter telling you how much child maintenance should be paid.
What you can do to help
You can help us deal with your case quickly and accurately by giving us all the information we need. When you contact us:
- tell us your National Insurance number and your reference number (if you have one),
- make sure the information you give us is accurate and up to date, and
- if we need any more information, try to give it to us a quickly as possible.
If you are the non-resident parent and pay child maintenance for your children, you should:
- make sure you pay the full amount on time, and
- let us know if you cannot pay or if something happens which might affect how much child maintenance you pay.
If you have problems paying the child maintenance you owe, let us know straight away so we can talk to you about other ways you can pay.
You can read the full service standards you can expect from us in our client charter. |
