[holding answer 11 June 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 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 many parents have been prosecuted for (a) not providing information and (b) providing false information to the Child Support Agency in each year since 2000. [278965]
There were a total of 1,440 successful prosecutions in 2008/09. Of these, 1,380 parents were prosecuted for failing to provide information, 15 for providing false information and 45 for other offence types.
The total number of successful prosecutions broken down each year from 2004/05 are included in the attached table. There is no further breakdown available by prosecution type prior to 2008/09 as the system used to record this information is no longer in use. No figures are available prior to 2004/05.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Number 2004-05 250 2005-06 400 2006-07 480 2007-08 660 2008-09 1,440 Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. 2. No prior figures are available before 2004-05. 3. The figures for 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 are taken from the old compliance access database which is no longer in use, a breakdown of prosecution “type” can therefore not be included. 4. The figure for 2008-09 is taken from the CriMIS small systems database which provides a breakdown of prosecution type.