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 the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many child maintenance cases are currently unable to be processed due to technical faults with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission’s computer systems; how many cases have been so affected in each of the last five years; and what the (a) longest and (b) average delay in processing claims due to computer system failures was in (i) North West Cambridgeshire (ii) Cambridgeshire (iii) the East of England and (iv) North West England and Wales in each of the last five years. [274048]
Technical faults with the Child Support Agency’s computer systems result in cases being progressed clerically rather than not being processed. The Commission routinely publishes information on the number of cases which are processed clerically. This information is not available at regional level, and the latest national figures are available in Table 20 of the Child Support Agency’s Quarterly Summary of Statistics; a copy of which is available in the House of Commons library, or online at:
http://www.childmaintenance.org/publications/statistics.html
The number of cases the Agency managed clerically at a national level at 31 March 2009 was 60,000, which is less than 5% of the total caseload. Although the need to progress such claims clerically is not ideal, around £1 million in child maintenance is now collected each week for these cases.
The growth in the number of cases progressed clerically in the last six months is primarily a result of an upgrade to the Agency’s computer system in September 2008 which allowed the Agency to identify cases previously stuck and take action to progress them clerically. Information about any delays in processing individual claims clerically due to technical or other problems with the computer system is not available.
I am sorry on this occasion I could not be more helpful.
[holding answer 12 May 2009]: 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, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was owed in arrears of child maintenance payments in each quarter of each of the last two years; what recent progress has been made towards the payment of such arrears; what priority the payment of such arrears has in the work programme of the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission; whether such targets have been set for the reductions of levels of such arrears; and if he will make a statement. [274722]
Information on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents is routinely published in both the Child Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts and the Quarterly Summary of Statistics, both of which provide the latest audited estimate of child maintenance arrears to the end of March 2008. This information by quarter is set out in the attached table. The Commission’s latest estimate on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents in each quarter of the last year to March 2009 is also set out in the attached table. The table also includes the amount of child maintenance collected and arranged for each quarter from March 07 to March 09. This estimate is based on the Commission’s internal analysis and is subject to year end audit. The fully audited estimate will be published in the Child Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2009, currently expected to be published in July.
Collection of maintenance including arrears remains a priority for the Child Support Agency and its targets for the current year include the collection of £1135 million of which £170 million should be arrears. It is the total collected, rather than the separate amounts of current maintenance and arrears which affects movements in the total arrears outstanding, and there is no separate target to reduce the total. The Child Support Agency has made significant progress in the amount of maintenance collected over the period of its Operational Improvement Plan and as a result the rate at which arrears has grown has slowed dramatically from £23 million per month in 2004/5 to less than £2 million per month in per month in 2008/9 (based on un-audited figures).
However the current amount of arrears owed by non-resident parents is the cumulative total of sixteen years of maintenance owed and new arrears will continue to accrue as it is not possible to achieve total compliance.
Child maintenance arrears Overall maintenance collected and arranged including arrears (rolling 12 Months) Quarter ending Arrears (£ billion) 12 months ending Total maintenance collected (£ million) Of which arrears (£ million) March 2007 3.69 March 2007 898 91 June 2007 3.73 June 2007 916 97 September 2007 3.76 September 2007 942 106 December 2007 3.79 December 2007 975 116 March 2008 3.81 March 2008 1,010 126 June 20081 3.82 June 2008 1,050 138 September 20081 3.83 September 2008 1,088 149 December 20081 3.84 December 2008 1,112 156 March 20091 3.83 March 2009 1,132 158 1 Figures up to and including March 2008 have been audited. Figures after this date are yet to be audited and signed off. Note: The total debt outstanding is cumulative total of all debt accrued since the launch of the Child Support Agency in 1993.
[holding answer 12 May 2009]: 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 the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many non-resident parents who owed child maintenance (a) received prison sentences, (b) received suspended prison sentences, (c) had their driving licences removed and (d) had their houses or other assets sequestered in the last year for which figures are available. 274723
In the 12 months to the end of January 2009, 30 non-resident parents received prison sentences, 510 received suspended prison sentences, 30 non-resident parents received suspended driving licence disqualification and 5 were disqualified from driving. In the same period the Child Support Agency referred 106 cases for Order for Sale action of which 45 hearings have concluded, with 27 orders being granted and a further 29 awaiting a hearing. The Agency took possession of 3 properties and in a further 14 cases are awaiting payment prior to possession being taken.
The Child Support Agency has also increased the number of enforcement actions targeted at assets including capital, available to non-resident parents. A total of 18,320 cases were referred to Bailiffs (including 'attachments' in Scotland) who can seize assets to recover debt. A total of 5,785, third party debt orders or arrestments in Scotland as well as charging orders were taken out enabling the Child Support Agency to access funds held by third parties such as banks or building societies, or to place a charge on the equity in property. Finally in Scotland alone 1,760 Bills of Inhibition were taken out, this is a personal prohibition preventing heritable property being transferred, alienated or disposed of by the non-resident parent.
Table 21 of the March 2009 Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS) gives information on the total volume of different enforcement actions undertaken by the Agency. The QSS is available in the House of Commons library or online at:
http://www.childmaintenance.org/publications/statistics.html
I hope you find this answer helpful.
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 the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner as the Child Support Agency is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much debt is owed to the Child Support Agency. [275407].
Information on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents is routinely published in both the Child Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts and the Quarterly Summary of Statistics, both of which provide the latest audited estimate of child maintenance arrears to the end of March 2008.
As at March 2009, the amount of Child Maintenance Arrears owed by non-resident parents to parents with care or the Secretary of State is £3.8 billion. This figure is un-audited.
The Agency is collecting more arrears than it has ever done before and in March 2009 collected £13.8 million in maintenance arrears alone. A total of £158m has been collected in arrears in the year ending March 2009, an increase of £31.7m from the previous 12 months.
I hope you find this answer helpful.