HC Deb 03 December 1992 vol 215 c342W
Mr. Kirkwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate(a) the costs for the setting up of the Child Support Agency, (b) the running costs of the Child Support Agency in 1993–94, and for each of the financial years up to the year the agency will be fully operational, (c) the total number of staff the agency will employ, (d) how many staff will be located in the six regional centres, (e) how many child support officers the agency will employ and (f) how many of the child support officers will be located in the six regional centres.

Mr. Burt

The current estimates are:

  1. (a) Total costs of setting up the agency—£146 million.
  2. (b) Running costs of the agency—
  3. £ million
    Year Costs
    1993–94 94
    1994–95 111
    1995–96 117
    1996–97 114
    1997–98 116
  4. (c) The agency will employ around 5,000 staff when fully operational.
  5. (d) About 500 staff employed will be employed in each of the six Child Support Agency centres.
  6. (e) The agency will employ around 1,500 child support officers.
  7. (f) There will be about 250 child support officers located in each Child Support Agency centre.

Mr. Kirkwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many applications it is estimated that the Child Support Agency will deal with in each year from 1993–94 to the year in which it becomes fully operational.

Mr. Burt

The Child Support Agency will become fully operational during 1997–98. On current predictions, the number of applications per year until then are estimated to be as follows:

(thousands)
Year Applications
1993–94 830
1994–95 570
1995–96 650
1996–97 430