CSA To Close

antrim | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis

Saturday July 22, 2006 02:58

by The Arbiter - nipsa

THE CSA IS SET TO CLOSE DUE TO A HATCHET JOB BY SIR DAVID HENSHAW

CSA SET TO CLOSE !
I know this is something that a lot of people have been waiting for, and with good reason, but believe me what you will read in the press in the near future is only the tip of the Iceberg. The CSA, from its Tory inception, has been plodding along like some maimed Dinosaur, ready to be picked off by it’s smaller, carnivorous, counterparts. Indeed these counterparts are privately owned, profiteering, Debt Collection Agencies, that don’t give two f**ks about the alleviation of child poverty. These are the very DCA ‘s that are used by the CSA as part of their enforcement procedures against non-resident parents who refuse to pay for their children.
‘So what?’ I hear you ask, well it’s as simple as this, the staff have been commended on several occasions in parliament due to the fact, to quote a select committee report :

“The only thing that has kept it going is the quite extraordinary level of staff commitment although that too is now jeopardised by the uncertainty surrounding staff reductions.”

We have very little public support, I actually think we are as popular as traffic wardens (those hard working public servants).

It is management who have squandered over 1billion pounds of tax payers money on a system that just doesn’t work! One former chief executive of the CSA has even commented that it was criminal what managers have done and should have faced prosecution due to the unbelievable waste of public money.

The only thing the ordinary staff can ask for….no plead for is your support as we face closure. This is due to a report, commissioned by Downing street, by Sir David Henshaw a private sector hatchet man who has been reportedly paid £900 a day for his services.
These are our jobs, all 1800 staff, this is our future, who will be next for the chop???

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Comments (6 of 6)

CSA

by Not Patrique - nipsa

Sun Jul 23, 2006 00:25

All of the above is idle speculation, at least according to Senior management in The CSA. They have yet to inform the staff that the report comes out on Monday, they merely hinted that it might, despite being aware of the exact timing of the report. Mind you, the new Operational Improvement Plan, to save the agency, is so secret that NO-ONE knows what is in it. New teams are currently being trained to do......well no-one seems to know. Makes you wonder how they train them. The Parliamentary Select committee blamed this DWP secrecy for a lot of the failure, and it seems that nothing has changed.

The improvement plan is but a smokescreen. It's sole purpose is to smooth the way towards privatisation. It is a little known fact that the debt agencies will be able to renegotiate their contract, and charge more in the future.

As Civil Servants, in an unpopular agency, it will be difficult to garner public support for the staff, but the public should be up in arms about the waste of money and resources that has gone into mismanaging the agency. They got it wrong from the start by having maintenance "means tested". Why should Brokelyn Beckham get more than Ardoyne O'Sullivan, if we insist on calling kids by where they were conceived. What should have been a simple operation was turned into a labrinth of red tape at the outset.

And the money spent on the new IT system, from a company with a record of failure, could have built about 15 new, state of the art, hospitals. Of course, friends of George Bush own the company, so maybe there was no choice.

The new top-man, Mr Geraghty, will merely oversee the privatisation and down sizing, and will be rewarded with a new top government job. Many of those to blame, Chief Executives, and ministers, will retire on mammoth pensions or move on to wreck havoc elsewhere.

And the staff, the only people to emerge with credit from the entire disaster, they will be shafted.

Of course the staff can still do something. They could be pro-active and refuse to implement the changes towards putting themselves out of work. In N.Ireland management can dangle the carrot that they are still N.Ireland Civil Servants and will be moved to other departments, but as Mr Hain is ready to jettison 5 departments, if management can incorporate 1,800 staff into departments which are facing severe cuts, well they could get themselves jobs feeding people with loaves and fishes.

The two NIPSA branches in the agency, 7 and 8, will need support from everyone in the union. Unfortunately there are a few who would like to see the back of Branch 8, but imagine if they were dispersed into other branches? You could end up with about 40 CS branches asking serious questions instead of a few. So hopefully the whole union will rally round.

The staff of the agency are blameless for this debacle, but they will pay the biggest price. Basing "success" on useless, meaningless, statistics, such as how many children did you not manage to pay this week by closing 100 cases, was never going to alleviate child poverty, although I doubt if that was the intention of the CSA from the outset. Catching up with absentee parents is a vote catcher in the good old US of A, and perhaps the governments here thought the same.

I doubt if many will mourn the loss of the CSA, but they should mourn the scandalous waste of public money spent in mismanaging the agency. At the end of the day parents should be responsible for maintaining their children, child poverty does need to be tackled, and I doubt if the new model will achieve much in that direction.

by Patrique - nipsa

Sun Jul 23, 2006 00:28

I, Patrique, would like to assure the management of the CSA, from the ministers downwards, that the above comment has nothing to do with me. Honest.

Fri Jul 28, 2006 01:22

I must admit I did not expect public support for Civil Servants, especially from an unpopular agency, but the response to a thread entitled "CSA to Close" from fellow NIPSA members, and trade unionists and activists everywhere, has been staggering. Thank you all for your support.

what did you expect

by Dr Dread

Fri Jul 28, 2006 12:14

what did you expect, when the csa close it will mean the end of Branch 8, alot of people in NIPSA will be glad of that.

and hey we will not even be re-deployed within the NICS and that means we will be out of their hair, and will not be able to influence their branches to follow us, the supreme branch... all hail Patrique our defender of jobs man to many but god to us...

The Revelation

by Notradameus - Fortune Tellers Union

Mon Dec 18, 2006 21:27

Larkin' House

Sounds like you are trying to do me out of a job with your prophecy coming true.

Wasnt there a motion passed at Conference 2006 supporting the opposition to the CSA's closure. I see we did a lot of good on this one as I dont remember much being said at CSGE level this year about it.

csa

by patrique - nipsa

Tue Dec 19, 2006 22:13

Why does that last sentence not surprise me.

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Comments (6 of 6)