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Dept for Work and Pensions;Child Support Agency

Answer

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his written ministerial statement of 28 October 2004, Official Report, columns 55-57WS, on the new child support scheme progress report, what the average weekly child support maintenance payment to parents with care for the month of October is; how many new scheme cases were not able to be progressed under the new system with respect to Quarter 4 2003-04 onwards and schemes to date; if he will list the reasons for the closure of applications; when the Child Support Agency (CSA) will start properly to manage performance in the area of compliance; and what the fundamentals of the special exercise to be employed to determine the CSA's achievement of its accuracy target at the end of March 2005 are. [196267] Mr. Pond: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mr. Doug Smith. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested. Letter from Mike Isaac to Ms Annabelle Ewing, dated 15 November 2004: In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As he is currently on leave I am replying on his behalf. You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Ministerial Statement of 28th October Official Report columns 55-57WS on the new child support scheme progress report what the average weekly child support maintenance payment to parents with care for the month of October is; how many new scheme cases were not able to be progressed under the new system with respect to Quarter 4 2003-04 onwards and schemes to date; if he will list the reasons for the closure of applications; when the Child Support Agency (CSA) will start properly to manage performance In the area of compliance; and what the fundamentals of the special exercise to be employed to determine the CSA's achievement of its accuracy target at the end of March 2005 are. The headings below provide a summary of your questions. Average weekly child support maintenance payment: I am unable to provide the average weekly child support maintenance for October at this present time. However, I can provide the figures for September: Average weekly payment: September 2004 (£) _________________________________________________________________________________________________. One qualifying child 33.72 Two qualifying children 46.76 Three qualifying children 55.67 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. New Scheme cases that have not been progressed: The information below shows the number of stuck cases that relate to our top ten most problematic classifications: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Number 29 December 2003 63,746 26 January 2004 75,337 23 February 2004 47,725 22 March 2004 52,538 19 March 2004 39,126 17 May 2004 34,143 14 June 2004 34,614 12 July 2004 36,031 9 August 2004 37,703 6 September 2004 38,941 4 October 2004 40,009 1 November 2004 41,985 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. These figures are collated on a weekly basis not calendar month so, they are shown four weekly. The reasons for closure of applications: Applications close for a variety of reasons the main reason being that the parent with care withdraws the application, perhaps due to reconciliation, or having agreed private arrangements with the non-resident parent. Other reasons are if the parent with care moves off benefit and no longer wishes to pursue the application, or if the parent with care is unable to provide sufficient information to establish the identity of the non resident patent. Management of Compliance: The Agency now has the management information available from its new computer system to monitor its performance in respect of case and cash compliance on the `new scheme'. We have developed our own payment tracking tool which will enable us to better manage our performance in this area. We are already seeing emerging evidence that performance is improving as a result of these initiatives. Accuracy target: In February and March 2005 a special exercise will measure a statistically valid sample of cases. This will determine the extent to which the last decision for all maintenance calculations is correct to the nearest penny.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

196267; 426 c1188-9W;426 c1192-3W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Children Administration Child Support Agency Maintenance Standards

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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