Stephen Doughty – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of Child Support Agency enforcement rates for payment of child maintenance.

Priti Patel

The latest published figures show 88% of cases on the 1993 and 2003 schemes and 88% of case groups on the 2012 scheme contributing towards their current maintenance liability.

Where a non-resident parent fails to meet their liabilities, the Child Support Agency has a range of enforcement powers. For example, child maintenance can be taken directly from bank accounts and wages; and the Government has also introduced a new power to disclose non-compliance to credit reference agencies.

The total number of enforcement actions taken by the Agency can be found on page 41 of the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics June 2015 available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-support-agency-quarterly-summary-statistics–2.

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