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 effectiveness of the 2012 Child Maintenance Scheme computer system to process in a timely manner service requests for (a) a new child maintenance scheme claim, (b) a change of circumstances, (c) a variation request, (d) chasing arrears, and (e) enforcement action.

The 2012 Child Maintenance System (CMS2012) provides support for the full range of child maintenance administrative processes including new applications, case maintenance and enforcement.

A Service Improvement Programme was established in April 2018, to optimise the performance and stability of the system. Significant improvements have already been implemented through both hardware and software upgrades. These changes have already resulted in quicker response times for users and compared with the period June 2017 to September 2017, the average response time of the core case management system has reduced by over 50%. We are continually working with the system’s users to make further improvements.