Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many deaths since 2000 have been linked to Child Support Agency cases or cases managed by the Child Maintenance Service.

We have interpreted your question to refer to the death, for any reason, of receiving or paying parent who is named on a case managed by the Child Support Agency (CSA) or the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

Data is only available for the 2003 CSA scheme, and for the CMS since December 2015. It is standard practice for the Department to be informed of a death and for this to be recorded on departmental systems. It is only possible to identify a death of a case participant where the Department has a National Insurance number for the parent involved and has been informed of the death. Where the Department is informed of a death only the date is recorded as standard practice and as such any link beyond involvement in a case cannot be established.

For 2003 scheme cases managed by the CSA there were 71,200 deaths informed to DWP between 2003 and 31st December 2017.

For cases managed by the CMS there were 3,500 deaths informed to DWP between 1st December 2015 and 31st December 2017.

Numbers have been rounded to the nearest one hundred.