Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps have been taken to ensure that service users are able to access the Child Maintenance Service in a timely manner.

New customers access the Child Maintenance Service by telephone contact whilst existing customers have a choice of telephony or self-service for a number of transactions. Every six months we formally review the numbers of people working at key points during our operating hours to ensure we have the right number of people available to answer customer calls, and our most recent review was completed at the beginning on June. This is in line with the approach taken for all services provided by DWP. As you would expect we undertake periodic upgrades to our systems but endeavour to keep customer impact to a minimum and ensure that they have adequate notice. Lastly, occasionally, the Child Maintenance Service is subject to unplanned system down time we have robust internal processes in place to minimise the period of disruption.