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