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Children: Maintenance

Answer

The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive. He will write to the hon. Member 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, what measures he put in place to facilitate the clearing of arrears in child maintenance owed by absent parents; and if he will make a statement. [227633]""Since April 2006, under its three year Operational Improvement Plan the Agency put in place a number of improvements to support the collection of child maintenance debt, including the contracting out of some debt collection activity to private debt collection agencies and the introduction of more flexible payment methods such as credit and debit cards. We have also increased the number of our people engaged in enforcement activities and have improved the tools and processes allowing them to undertake enforcement work more effectively.""As a result the Agency is collecting more child maintenance arrears than it has ever done before and in September 2008 collected £14.6 million in maintenance arrears alone, more than twice the average amount collected each month before the introduction of the Operational Improvement Plan. Since March 2008, the Agency has collected £80.3 million in arrears, bringing to almost £297 million the total collected in maintenance arrears alone since April 2006.""The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 strengthens the range of enforcement and debt management powers available to the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. These include;""Deduction of maintenance payments and/or arrears from bank accounts;""Removing the need to apply to the court for a Liability Order;""Recovering arrears from deceased non resident parents' estates;""Applying to the court for disqualification from holding or obtaining a passport;""Applying to the court for a curfew.""The Commission will bring these powers into force as soon as practicable in order to build on the Agency's improvements and will continue to focus on collection of outstanding arrears.""I hope you find this answer helpful."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

482 c3W;482 c3W; 227633

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Children Maintenance

Link

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