Children: Maintenance
Work and Pensions

Shailesh Vara (Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, Parliament; North West Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much the Child Support Agency was owed by non-resident parents on the latest date for which figures are available.

Helen Goodman (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Bishop Auckland, Labour)

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested and I have seen the response.

Letter from Stephen Geraghty:

In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.

You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much the Child Support Agency was owed by non-resident parents on the latest date for which figures are available.

Information on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents is routinely published in the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics. This is available through the following link:

http://www.childmaintenance.org/en/publications/stats1209.html

As at December 2009, the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by Non-Resident Parents to either Parents with Care or the Secretary of State is £3,783 million. This has decreased from £3,842 million in December 2008. A total of £150m has been collected in arrears in the year January to December 2009. These figure are un-audited.

I hope you find this answer helpful.