Child Support

Mr. Quentin Davies
21. To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent estimate he has made of the number of outstanding Child Support Agency cases; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Plaskitt
The Operational Improvement Plan is delivering impressive results on outstanding cases. Uncleared new scheme applications have fallen from 221,000 to just under 107,000. Uncleared old scheme applications have fallen from 65,000 to 27,000.

The Agency continues to clear more cases per month than it receives.

Miss McIntosh
22. To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent representations he has received on child support issues.

Mr. Plaskitt
I received several representations on child support issues during the passage of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act. In particular, I received representations from One Parent Families/Gingerbread, Families Need Fathers, Resolution, and the Law Society of Scotland on a variety of issues that were debated in both Houses. This followed on from the consultation on the Government's response to Sir David Henshaw's review of Child Maintenance, where we received 191 responses, 33 of which were from stakeholder groups.

The new chair and Commissioner of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission have also received representations and are actively working with stakeholders on the development of the reformed Child Maintenance system.