The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have therefore asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
Letter from Stephen Geraghty:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about child maintenance, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner as the child maintenance system is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many child maintenance cases were closed where the parent with care was (a) claiming and (b) not claiming income support and (i) the non-resident parent was still liable to pay maintenance and (ii) the maintenance liability had ended in each of the last 24 months. [260114]
The information that you have requested is not available as the Child Support Agency does not record information on the maintenance liability status of a case at the point it is closed, or on the benefit status of closed cases.
Information on the number of current scheme applications which are closed each month is routinely published in Table 2.4 of the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS). The latest copy of which is in the House of Commons library or online at the following link:
http://www.childmaintenance.org/publications/statistics.html.
The information set out in this table is concerned with the status of cases at the application stage rather than at case closure. It includes information on applications for child maintenance made as a result of a claim for either Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance.
I hope you find this answer helpful.