Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2015 to Question 228147, by when his Department plans to complete its detailed consideration of the policy and processes for validating the arrears accrued on all existing Child Support Agency cases, including arrears accrued from Interim Maintenance Assessments; and what steps he plans to take to ensure that the final policy and processes arising from that consideration and the timetable for implementation are fully transparent.

As part of the case closure process expected to run until 2017, all existing Child Support Agency (1993/2003) cases with outstanding arrears will go through a series of checks to validate their arrears balance.

We have already started closing Child Support Agency cases by segments based on case characteristics, prioritising those with on-going liability before closing arrears only cases.

Where the arrears balance has been validated and the receiving parent has not indicated that they want their arrears written off, the stable balance will then be transferred to the 2012 Child Maintenance Scheme. Our approach to other historical debt, including Interim Maintenance Assessments remains under consideration.