Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time is for her Department to close a case when a Child Maintenance Service order expires; and what targets are in place for such cases to be closed.

We have interpreted the expiring of a Child Maintenance Service order to mean the ending of Child Maintenance liability on a Child Support Agency (CSA) case as part of our case closure process.

The process to end the liabilities (stop accruing maintenance) in all Child Support Agency cases began in 2014. The Case closure process involves sending the customer 3 letters over the case closure journey to instigate, remind and confirm liability is ending, enabling the customer to make alternate arrangements over the period. .

At end of liability, clients are told that their Child Support Agency child maintenance arrangement has ended. The Non Resident Parent will be told when to make a final maintenance payment and to keep paying any arrears. The Child Support Agency (CSA) will continue to collect and pay arrears payments that are made prior to the case fully closing - but regular maintenance collections and payments will stop after a 6 month fixed period.

When liability has ended the case enters “arrears cleanse”. The purpose of this period (which may take up to a further 6 months) is to examine the debt balances on the case to address any anomalies and so calculate a “stable” arrears figure. This involves reviewing any suspended and deferred debt. It includes the write off of debt in circumstances covered by existing debt write off powers.

A case can only close once all arrears have been cleared or collected. For those cases where the child maintenance liability ended on or after 1^st April 2014 as part of this process the average length of time for the Department to close a case was 27 weeks, this is based on data up 31^st September 2017. The department aims to end liability on all Child Support Agency cases by 31 December 2018.

In terms of targets, the department have a clear timeline for ending liability for individual cases 6 months after selection but there time taken to actually close the case will be dependant on the arrears position and the amount of work outstanding.. Whilst there are no specific targets for the process of closing cases once liability has ended, for most cases this should be around 6 months, and the exact time will depend on case circumstances. This relates to Child Support Agency cases only, and only those cases that are subject to the case closure programme. We have no specific closure data for Child Maintenance Service (CMS) cases, and they are not part of the case closure programme.