---

Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

If statements are being produced, I see no reason why they should not encompass the obligations of the non-resident parent as well as the parent with care. There is obviously a particular issue for the parent with care, because that parent is the one receiving the cash. It is very important that they can keep up-to-date with the sums due to them under the calculations and the extent to which those sums have been received. That is probably rightly the primary, but not the exclusive, focus. Amendment No. 77 would appear to require the commission to gather the financial details of non-resident parents prior to the determination of an application for maintenance. Those who fail to provide such details would be subject to criminal sanctions. I remind the Committee—and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, acknowledged this—that it is already a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to £1,000, for a non-resident parent not to provide information required to make a maintenance assessment, and that will continue to be the case. However, we already know that a system based on financial information provided by non-resident parents leads to substantial delays in the assessment process, and may be subject to numerous changes at the request of either parent. That is why we propose to base the assessment on historical income data provided by HMRC and not on information provided by the non-resident parent. This amendment would call that process into question. Further, this amendment would result in a significant duplication of effort, since in many cases the commission would be investigating income information that had already been looked at and provided by HMRC. No purpose would be served by repeating those investigations or requiring non-resident parents to provide the same information twice. Over the past few months as the policy on information and support has been developed, one issue that has most exercised me is what income should be taken into account and how that can best be accessed. We know from experience that what has created problems in the past is the desire to have fully complete information about the expenses and income of both parents and to have to rely on a variety of sources for that information to be compiled. That was what caused the CSA, in significant measure, to fail. We must avoid that: I cannot stress that too strongly to the Committee. It is a matter that I have thought long and hard about over recent months. There is something worrying about not being able to gather together all the information for an assessment to which noble Lords have referred. If that happens, we know that assessments will not be made on a timely basis and, in a large number of cases, we will not get more cash flowing to more children. Amendment No. 81 would require the commission to gather information about both parents and share that information with both parties. I understand how that could be seen as beneficial to parents in understanding each other’s financial circumstances, but gathering such additional information would be unnecessary to the function of the commission. I am sure that the Committee will remember the difficulties that we faced, and continue to face, in administering the first child support system. That system requires the agency to gather the financial details of both parents, and takes into account the full financial circumstances of both parents including housing costs, unearned income and loans. Further, this amendment would violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Data Protection Act 1998, as it would mean disclosing the financial circumstances of the non-resident parent to the parent with care, even in circumstances where that information is not relevant to the maintenance calculation in the current or future schemes. Under current arrangements, the parent with care can request a copy of all information relevant to their case from the Child Support Agency, and that arrangement will continue under the new commission. The information that would routinely be provided and available to the parent with care would be the income of the non-resident parent on which the maintenance calculation is based. Factors affecting the maintenance liability could be any variation, the existence of a relevant other child or any personal information held regarding the parent with care themselves, but that does not necessarily amount to the full flow of information that might arise under these amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said that in circumstances where the relationship had just broken down, the parent with care would be likely to know quite a lot about the financial circumstances of the non-resident parent. However, that would depend on the relationship that has broken down. Clearly, if there has been a marriage or a long-standing relationship, that is more likely to be true. However, it would not be true in many of the cases with which we are dealing: the relationship might have been quite casual and brief. Amendments Nos. 83 and 201 are very similar in effect so I will address them together. They would give the commission the power to share any information regarding the non-resident parent in relation to functions of child support with the parent or person with care. If we were to implement the changes suggested, we would give the commission the power to disclose such information as the address and telephone number of the non-resident parent, or the names and other personal details of other children of the non-resident parent, to the parent with care. Such inappropriate use of information held by the commission must be protected against in legislation so that it is clear that inappropriate disclosure of information is unacceptable and that the commission has every regard for the privacy and data security of its client. In practice, there are very few instances when the commission would need to provide personal and financial information relating to the non-resident parent to the parent with care in order to exercise its functions, and currently the parent with care automatically receives all details that we believe are necessary. These arrangements will continue under the commission. We are sure that this provides sufficient access to information for the parent with care, while protecting the privacy of the non-resident parent. Amendment No. 202 concerns the security of information and would require the information held by the commission to be subject to a risk assessment. Protecting personal information is a top priority for every government department and will be expected to be a priority for the commission also. The department is currently reviewing its IT and data-sharing arrangements to ensure that the processing and sharing of information is carried out fairly, lawfully and strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Act. The department plans to ensure that the commission follows through any recommendations from the review and will, if necessary, ensure this by using its powers to issue guidance and direction to the commission. Therefore, I do not believe that it is necessary for the Office of Government Commerce to perform a risk assessment on the data as held by the commission. Amendment No. 206, the final amendment from this group, would give the courts access to much of the information held by the commission. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 6 to the Bill puts into place powers for the commission to transfer information between agents acting on behalf of the commission. It also enables the commission’s agents to give information acquired while acting on behalf of the commission back to the commission. Further, the agency is currently able, and the commission will be able in the future, to disclose information to the courts and tribunals where such disclosure is made for the purposes of any proceedings relating to the Child Support Act 1991 or where a court has exercised any power to make, vary or revive a maintenance order or maintenance agreement. This enables the agency and the commission to disclose information when applying for or defending an action which has been brought in respect of a particular issue on a case. We believe that it would be inappropriate for the commission to disclose information to the courts in matters beyond its primary concerns, which could include property disputes, custody hearings, or criminal trials. I hope that with those assurances and arguments, I have convinced the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. Later, we shall debate the position and knowledge of the parent with care, and the ability to make applications under the variation scheme. That will be a good opportunity to develop further some of the discussion around this important issue.