The report came out on March 24.  The same day DWP announced the new
CSA chief executive, and (I think) published their response to the
Select Committee response on the CSA.  That made sense as a logical
package, but meant the report didn't get much attention (some limited
coverage in the Telegraph).  An earlier publication date had been set,
but turned out to clash with Budget day.

The report was picked some time later up by 'Computer Weekly' (I don't
know how), who published several interesting pieces about the report
and the CSA yesterday.  They have followed stories about the management
of large IT projects in Govt, and reported it in that vein.  Their
reporting was mostly accurate, with an IT management emphasis (and they
incidentally welcomed DWP giving access to staff for such research).

This seems to have prompted the Guardian to run a front-page piece
yesterday, with the provocative headline: 'Child support agency admits
it tricked families into losing cash' -- something that isn't based on
anything we said in the report.  As Mike quoted, any 'tricks' used were
well-intentioned and meant to speed up the process, not to thwart it.

It was then the Guardian piece, I think, that prompted BBC news and
others to broadcast the story.  Myself and my co-author Adele Atkinson
spoke to several journalists during the day (and Adele did some
interviews) clarifying what the report did and did not say.

Hope this helps.  Happy to provide further details, but given the non-
stats nature not sure if it merits whole-list attention.

Best wishes

Steve McKay
Bristol University



Quoting Mike Brewer <[log in to unmask]>:

> The report in question is DWP research report 232, a link to which
> can be
> found at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rrs2005.asp. The report
> itself is
> at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2005-2006/rrep232.pdf. It
> was
> co-written by Steve McKay, who has occasionally posted things to
> this
> list.
>
> The executive summary says that (p3):
> "Some staff said that they were entering some incorrect information
> to
> fill in unknown details so that they could get the system to continue
> with
> the case. Others took notes whilst clients were on the phone then
> completed the relevant screens afterwards." This is by no means the
> headline of the report, and the quote above makes it sound much less
> bad
> than the PM headline. It would be interesting to know what the
> authors
> made of this.
>
> Mike Brewer
>
> PS: the DWP website says this was published in March 2005, and the
> most
> recent report is number 242. So the real question is: who prompted
> the PM
> programme about this month-old report?
>
> > This is a Rad issues rather than a Stats one, though
> > definitely Stats-related.
> >
> > Listening this evening to "PM" on Radio 4, during the
> > preliminary brief summaries of news items (though it
> > seems it was not expanded on later in the program)
> > I heard the following:
> >
> >   "A Government-commissioned report into the Child
> >    Support Agency has found that staff deliberately
> >    put false information into their comuter systems
> >    to speed up claims.
> >
> >    The Dept of Work and Pensions says things have
> >    improved since the research was carried out last
> >    year."
> >
> > Well, no doubt doing such a thing could be a sackable
> > disciplinary offence, and no doubt a member of the
> > public, who knew they had suffered from such actions,
> > could sue in the Civil Courts if not given adequate
> > redress by the DWP.
> >
> > But it is already a criminal offence for a member of
> > the public to provide false information to the CSA.
> > So perhaps deliberately inputting false information
> > by CSA staff should also be a criminal offence.
> >
> > Indeed, in that it subverts the proper functioning
> > of the State, it could come under the heading of
> > treason (though in that case I doubt the Bloody Tower
> > could cope).
> >
> > We are in the hands of politicians and associated
> > manipulators of "information" (including "statistics").
> > We are also in the hands -- literally -- which bear
> > the fingers tapping lies into computers: lies which
> > are liable to diffuse throughout the Government IT
> > network and return to plague us from unexpected
> > quarters.
> >
> > Would the Freedom of Information Act give a person
> > the right to ask if they had been victim of such a
> > thing? And get a true answer? And what about other
> > Government agencies?
> >
> > Who could be responsible for the integrity of the
> > information on Government computers? The ONS? The
> > Information Commissioner? Some Sub-Committee of the
> > Audit Commission? But surely such responsibility is
> > liable to be retro-active; horses bolt far afield
> > with stable doors left open!
> >
> > By the way: Trying to follow up the above "PM" item
> > later, I failed to find any reference to it on the DWP
> > or CSA websites, and also had no success with Google.
> >
> > Does anyone know how this report (or any more extended
> > treatment of it) might be tracked down?
> >
> > Best wishes to all,
> > Ted.
> >
> >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> > Date: 12-Apr-05                                       Time:
> 20:00:25
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>
> --
> Mike Brewer
> Programme Director, Direct Tax and Welfare
> Institute for Fiscal Studies
> 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7291 4800  Fax: +44 (0)20 7323 4780
>
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