Around 15 years ago an MP stood up in Parliament and demanded to know why the new computer system for the Child Support Agency (CSA) was taking so long to be delivered.
The computer system was implementing the CSA’s ‘new rules’, which were being introduced to reduce the complexity of the calculation around how much the person paying the child support should pay. Under the new, simplified, scheme if you were paying support for one child then it would be 15% of your income, 20% if you were supporting two children and 25% for three or more children.
The MP – and I wish I could find a news story or a Hansard reference in order to name him – brandished a pocket calculator, such as you can buy for a couple of quid, and demanded to know why a sum that could be performed in seconds on a cheap…