Children: Maintenance
(asked on 9th February 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in how many cases the Child Support Agency has been successful in pursuing the debt of a non-resident parent in the last five years.
The Government set up a new Child Maintenance scheme in 2012 to address historic failings in the 1993 and 2003 schemes. The Child Support Agency stopped accepting new applications in 2013. The operational priority of the statutory service is to collect money for children who will benefit from regular ongoing maintenance payments today, rather than prioritising the pursuit of historic arrears in cases where the children have now grown up.
The number of CSA cases paying towards an arrears liability is given in the table below.
Quarter ending: | Number of Cases with an Arrears Liability | Paying Towards Arrears | % Paying Towards Arrears |
Mar-12 | 1,188,200 | 275,700 | 23.2% |
Mar-13 | 1,240,200 | 289,700 | 23.4% |
Mar-14 | 1,274,200 | 283,100 | 22.2% |
Mar-15 | 1,232,000 | 242,900 | 19.7% |
This and further information is available in Table 10 of the latest Quarterly Summary of Statistics which can be accessed online at:
Notes:
1) Data not available prior to March 2012
2) Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.
3) A case is counted as paying towards arrears if they had an outstanding arrears balance at the end of the previous quarter and no liability to pay regular maintenance over the current quarter but money is being received via the collection service, or if the full regular liability has been satisfied in the quarter and additional payments have been received.