Speeches

Kate Green – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Green on 2016-04-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much of the £31 million of child maintenance arrears written off in 2014-15 was written off under each of the ground in the Child Support Management of Payment and Arrears (Amendment) Regulations 2012.

Priti Patel

The circumstances of the £31 million of child maintenance arrears written off in 2014-15 is shown in the table below:

Circumstance

2014/15 write off (£m)

The person with care has requested that the Secretary of State ceases to act in respect of the arrears

6.5

A child in Scotland has requested that the Secretary of State ceases to act in respect of the arrears

0.0

The person with care, or (in Scotland) the child, has died

3.0

The non-resident parent died before 25 January 2010 or there is no further action that can be taken with regard to recovery of the arrears from the non-resident parent’s estate

19.8

The arrears relate to liability for child support maintenance for any period in respect of which an interim maintenance assessment was in force between 5 April 1993 and 18 April 1995

0.1

The non-resident parent has been informed by the Secretary of State that no further action would ever be taken to recover those arrears

0.2

Other

1.3

Notes

  1. The figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
  2. The circumstance ‘Other’ includes amounts written off following Secretary of State and client part payment, £0.5m, arrears written off which were due to the Secretary of State, £0.2m and adjustments to arrears balances which have transitioned to the 2012 Child Maintenance system, £0.6m.