Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in what proportion of Child Support Agency arrears cases where there is a child who could still benefit are there arrears which have been (a) temporarily and (b) permanently suspended.

As of December 2014 approximately 36%¹ of cases with arrears where there is a qualifying child remaining on the case contained an amount of suspended arrears.

Information regarding arrears that have been temporarily or permanently suspended is not readily available and has not previously been published as official statistics. We will consider whether it is feasible to produce the statistics requested within the disproportionate cost limit, and if so, will issue them in an official statistics release in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Notes:

1. Management information on suspended debt is not available for off system cases, therefore the proportion of suspended arrears has been calculated using CS2 and CSCS cases only.