§ Mr. BlunkettTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what estimate has been made of the extent to which interim maintenance assessments are made under the Child Support Act 1991 which are lower than the maintenance an absent parent would pay after a full assessment;
(2) what procedures exist to ensure the accurate revision of incorrectly low interim maintenance assessments made under the Child Support Act 1991;
(3) whether the consent of the absent parent is required in order to rectify errors made in the calculation of interim maintenance assessments under the Child Support Act 1991;
(4) what arrangements exist for the compensation of families which have received an incorrectly low interim maintenance assessment under the Child Support Act due to error on the part of the Child Support Agency.
§ Mr. BurtInterim maintenance assessments are imposed where an absent parent has failed to provide sufficient information about his circumstances to enable a full maintenance assessment to be made. It is not possible to estimate whether an IMA is lower than a full maintenance assessment would otherwise be, since without information on the absent parent's circumstances it is not possible to determine the level of his eventual liability.
Interim maintenance assessments are set at 1.5 times the maintenance requirement—the amount calculated to represent the basic maintenance needs of the child—and, in the vast majority of cases, are higher than the amount the absent parent would be required to pay under the normal assessment.
In cases where IMAs have been incorrectly calculated, child support legislation currently requires that absent parents make a written application before an IMA can be cancelled and a correct IMA imposed. We propose to bring forward amendments to the regulations at the earliest opportunity, to ensure that defective IMAs can be reviewed or cancelled as appropriate at the instigation of a child support officer and without a written application from the absent parent.
The Child Support Agency has made its checks on IMAs more stringent to ensure that they are calculated correctly. These checks include a requirement that all IMA decisions are authorised at management level.
Claims for compensation are considered under the departmental general guidance. Each case is considered on its own merits.