Output 2—Child Support Agency: Highlights
- In 2004–05, almost 1.2 million children benefited from the transfer of $2.4 billion in child support payments.
- To date, $51.5 million of outstanding child support debt has been collected through a targeted compliance initiative that commenced on 1 July 2003. This initiative is expected to collect an additional $130 million over four years.
- Initiatives to support separated parents included the What about me?—Taking care of yourself booklet, an interactive CD-ROM titled Dealing with Separation and an internet, telephone and face-to-face support service.
- Improvements in customer service resulted from establishing a new telephone transfer service for mutual clients of the Child Support Agency (CSA) and Centrelink and a new real-time client feedback mechanism—Clients Having a Say.
- CSA’s new General Manager, Matt Miller, was appointed in March 2005. As a first step in an overall improvement agenda, Matt is refocusing CSA in the areas of customer service and stakeholder engagement.
- CSA launched an environmental management strategy on World Environment Day to minimise and reduce the impact of our activities on the environment.
- CSA actively participated in the Department of Human Services’s establishment of the local liaison officer network, which improves the service we provide to members of parliament and their constituents.
- The Department of Finance and Administration recognised further reductions in the cost of providing an effective and efficient Child Support Scheme with a new funding agreement.
- Our Staying Connected employer-based program was awarded gold in the 2004 Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Sector Management.
- Our culture of continuous improvement and our robust business processes were recognised with a bronze award in the 2005 Australian Business Excellence Awards. This is the highest level of award ever achieved by a Commonwealth agency.
Despite these achievements, CSA recognises the need to significantly improve in a broad range of areas. Our focus on our change agenda has been assisted by our joining other Human Services delivery agencies in October 2004.