Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that arrears are not discarded without the permission of the parent to whom the arrears are owed when cases are migrated from the Child Support Agency to the Child Maintenance Service.

Under the Compliance and Arrears strategy we are writing to clients with CSA debt above certain thresholds to ask if they want us to try to collect their arrears. These thresholds provide a reasonable cut off point to ensure that we do not pursue cases at disproportionate cost to the taxpayer. They are: over £500 and the case is less than 10 years old, and over £1,000 and the case 10 years old or over.

If correspondence is returned as the client is not known at the address held, the Service will attempt to trace a current address in order to reissue the letter.

If a client confirms they want the Service to attempt collection, the case is checked to ensure the debt balance is accurate before arrears are transferred from the CSA IT system to the CMS one.