Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what advice services there are for people with a child maintenance arrangement who (a) are moving away from Child Support Agency (CSA) arrangements and (b) have a child maintenance arrangement with the CSA.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Child Maintenance Options provides free and impartial information and support to help separated parents make decisions about their child maintenance arrangements. Parents, or anyone else with an interest in child maintenance can contact Child Maintenance Options at any time for information and support. If a parent is notified that their Child Support Agency case is due to close they can contact Child Maintenance Options to help make an informed decision before opening a case with Child Maintenance Service. Child Maintenance Options also signpost parents to support organisations to offer further advice.
Clients can contact Options at any stage during their case for advice or guidance. Child Support Agency caseworkers are also trained to offer advice to parents and signpost to relevant organisations where necessary.
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who have child maintenance arrangements with the Child Support Agency have received letters on the termination of those arrangements with the Child Support Agency.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Letters are issued when the liability on a case has ended. We have interpreted this question as the number of people who have been sent letters after they have had their liability ended.
The total number of cases where liability has ended stood at 509,200 as of the end of September 2016.
This can be found in Table 4.1 and 4.2 of the Case Closure Experimental Statistical publication which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-support-agency-case-closures-june-2014-to-september-2016.
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the transition of child maintenance arrangements from 2017 on children and their parents.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
My Department considered the effect of case closure on children and their parents through a public consultation: “Supporting separated families; securing children’s futures” in July 2012. Our response to the consultation was published in November 2013.
We have monitored the effects of case closure and the new statutory child maintenance scheme and published a research report on case closure in December 2016. We will continue to monitor the effects as the remaining cases are closed.
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints his Department has received from people on the termination of their arrangements with the Child Support Agency.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
We do not routinely record information on the number of complaints received from people on the termination of their arrangements with the Child Support Agency.
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 14 July 2015 to Question 5750, when figures for after August 2014 will be available.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The figures are already available. The response to Question 5750 included links to statistics for periods beyond August 2014.
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the name, responsibilities and pay band are of each special adviser in his Department.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my Rt Hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 13 July 2015 to Question No. 5983
Asked by: Stuart Blair Donaldson (Scottish National Party - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who were claiming employment and support allowance in the work-related activity group category moved to jobseeker's allowance in (a) Scotland and (b) the UK in each month since August 2014.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested is not readily available, and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.