[holding answer 14 September 2009]: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested and I have seen the response.
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 resident in Wales defaulted on child support payments in each of the last five years. [291172]
Information on the number of cases where the non-resident parent is not compliant and is living in Wales is provided in the attached table. This includes child maintenance cases held on both the current (CS2) and old (CSCS) computer systems and excludes cases administered clerically.
Quarterly figures as at June 2009 show 73% of non-resident parents living in Wales are compliant with their child maintenance payments.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
June each year Cases where maintenance requested Non-compliant cases Percentage compliant 2005 28,700 9,200 68 2006 29,700 8,200 72 2007 32,100 9,200 71 2008 32,700 9,500 71 2009 32,100 8,600 73 Notes: 1. This table shows the number of cases that were charged money via the Agency’s collection service over a three month period and the number of cases from which a payment was not received from over the same period. 2. Cases have been allocated to Wales by matching the residential postcode of the non-resident parent against the Office for National Statistics postcode directory. 3. Figures cover cases held on the CS2 and CSCS computer systems only and exclude the performance of cases administered clerically. 4. Volumes are rounded to the nearest hundred.