Revenu Québec: handle child support files quickly

The context

• A woman received child support whose amount was set until the end of September 2020. The money was collected from her ex-spouse.
• A week later, Revenu Québec received a judgment extending the support until the end of 2020. 
• However, after a while, the woman noticed that the payments had stopped.

The complaint

Not understanding why, the woman complained to the Protecteur du citoyen.

What the investigation showed

• In recent years, Revenu Québec has changed how it processes child support files. To improve service quality, the agency has adopted a new system called "PA-CIBLE."
• With PA-CIBLE, files are no longer assigned to one agent only. When something needs to be done, a "task" is created instead and entered in a common pool. As soon as an agent is available, he or she takes care of the priority task.
• However, there were problems with the overhaul, as described in our 2020-2021 Annual Report.
• So that payments would continue to be issued to the woman, Revenu Québec had to process the new judgment. A task was added to the pool, but the processing time was more than 30 days.
• Meanwhile, the woman was no longer receiving child support, even though the money was still being collected from her ex-spouse.

The outcome

The Protecteur du citoyen intervened with Revenu Québec to have the new judgment processed quickly. The agency acted immediately and payments resumed a few days later.

Note that since this complaint, PA-CIBLE wait times have shortened.

This case was taken from our 2020-2021 Annual Report.