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Child Support

Answer

The administration of the Child Support Agency is the matter for the chief executive. He will write to my hon. Friend with the information requested.Letter from Stephen Geraghty:"In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.""You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Support Agency new scheme cases have been uncleared within six months in (a) Jarrow constituency (b) South Tyneside (c) the North East and (d) the UK in each year since 1997. [223906]""The information you have requested is provided in the attached table which highlights the significant improvements the Agency has made to client service under its three year Operational Improvement Plan.""In addition to the overall reduction in uncleared cases, the Agency now clears 81% of all new applications within 12 weeks, already meeting the March 2009 Secretary of State target to clear 80% of cases in 12 weeks.""I hope you find this answer helpful."

Current scheme uncleared applications over six months old
	Uncleared applications over six months old
Month	Great Britain	North East	South Tyneside	Jarrow
June 2003	2,800	100	—	—
June 2004	79,500	3,900	300	100
June 2005	142,100	7,600	600	300
June 2006	135,000	7,600	500	200
June 2007	88,900	6,100	400	200
June 2008	62,700	4,800	300	100
'—' Indicates a figure less than 50.
Notes:
1. Figures include all uncleared applications over six months old.
2. As the current scheme came into existence in 2003, figures only go back to this date.
3. Cases have been allocated to the North East region, Jarrow Parliamentary Constituency and South Tyneside Local Authority by matching the postcode of the parent with care against the Office for National Statistics postcode directory.
4. Many uncleared applications will not have reached the point where the address details of the non-resident parent or parent with care have been recorded on the CS2 or CSCS computer systems and so can not be allocated to a geographical area. Such applications have been included under the Great Britain figure but are excluded from the regional breakdowns. Approximately 5,600 applications (9 per cent. of all uncleared applications) over six months old fall into this category.
5. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

223906; 480 c55-6W

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Children Maintenance

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk