Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken to issue payments to the receiving parent obtained by Child Maintenance Service as a result of a deduction of earnings order has been in 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Deduction from Earning Orders/Requests allow the Child Maintenance Service to collect child maintenance directly from a Paying Parents employer. The money is paid directly from the parents wages to the Child Maintenance Service who then pass the money on to the Receiving Parent. The department does not record information on the time taken to issue payments to the receiving parents as a result of a deduction from earnings order.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the cumulative effect on people with disabilities of the number of different assessments required to access benefits; and what steps she is taking to reduce that number.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Department recognises that many of those claiming benefits are particularly vulnerable and we continue to explore ways to improve the customer journey for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants.
We recognise that attending a Work Capability Assessment or a PIP assessment can be a stressful experience, which is why we do not carry out a face-to-face assessment where there is enough existing evidence to determine benefit entitlement for either benefit.
In addition, those placed in ESA’s Support Group, and the Universal Credit equivalent, who have the most severe and lifelong health conditions or disabilities, whose level of function would always mean that they would have Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity, and be unlikely ever to be able to move into work, will no longer be routinely reassessed.
With regard to PIP, in August 2018, we introduced updated guidance for case managers which will ensure that those who receive the highest level of support under PIP, and where their needs are unlikely to change or may get worse, will now receive an ongoing award with a light touch review at the ten year point.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time was for arrears to be (a) assessed and (b) applied in relation to cases transferred from the Child Support Agency to the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In the spirit of answering the question let me briefly describe the approach to assessing and applying arrears. On our old CSA systems we need to undertake action to ensure that we are assured the arrears amount is as accurate as possible before we trigger the movement of the amount to our new CMS IT systems. Once movement has been triggered our CMS caseworkers need to review the amount and apply it to the CMS case/scheduled for payment. Since April -18 the average time taken to apply arrears was 81.03 days, for work completed in August 18 the time taken has reduced to 62.15 days.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints have been made against the Child Maintenance Service since January 2017.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The latest statistics on the number of complaints received each quarter by the Child maintenance Service are published in Table 17 of the Child Maintenance Service: Aug 2013 to Mar 2018 (experimental) statistics available online at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-aug-2013-to-mar-2018-experimental
Information up to the end of June 2018 is due to be published in September 2018.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what performance measures have been established for the Child Maintenance Service for the clearing of arrears in maintenance cases.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
CMS publishes updates with regards to the value of unpaid maintenance in the Child Maintenance Service Statistics:
In March 2018 there was a total of £197.8m unpaid Child Maintenance which should have been paid through the Collect and Pay service. This equated to 12.1% of the total liability (child maintenance) raised to date since the service began, £1,637.6m, and includes unpaid Child Maintenance under Direct Pay cases which have been transferred to Collect and Pay.
Unpaid Maintenance will continue to accrue as it is impossible to achieve total compliance due to circumstances on individual cases and customer behaviours. CMS sets stretching performance measures to support restricting and reducing the growth of Unpaid Maintenance. The performance measures relate to expectations of compliance through proactive treatment of non-paying cases. The effect of these performance measures is to drive down the predicted growth so total Unpaid Maintenance does not exceed ~£300m reducing to 11.8% of the total liability raised.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many paying parents who had defaulted on payment and had outstanding arrears during the last month of their Child Support Agency case defaulted on payment within the first six months of being moved to the new Child Maintenance Service case.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.