Child Support Agency (Hansard, 30 June 1998)

§ Mr. Keith Bradley

The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mrs. Faith Boardman. She will write to my hon. Friend.

Letter from Mrs. Faith Boardman to Ms Gisela Stuart, dated 29 June 1998: I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about Child Support Agency cases currently awaiting assessment. The number of cases awaiting assessment at 31 May 1998 was 283,152. This is made up of approximately 110,000 backlog cases which are over 52 weeks old (down from 225,000 at the start of 1997/8) and 173,000 work on hand cases under 52 weeks old (down from 180,000 in the same period). In total, this represents a 30 per cent. reduction in the number of cases awaiting assessment. In addition to the cases awaiting assessment, there are also around 128,000 cases where the parent with care was in receipt of Income Support prior to the launch of the Agency in April 1993. Any parent with care in this group who wishes to pursue maintenance as part of the Government's New Deal for Lone Parents or for any other reason will be taken on by the Agency. The reductions in the numbers of cases outstanding have been achieved at the same time as the workloads of the Agency have been increasing. In 1997/98 the Agency cleared 595,000 maintenance applications—an increase of two-thirds on the 357,000 cleared in 1996/97. At the end of May 1998 our live and assessed caseloads stood at 784,160, compared with 609.800 in May 1997 (an increase of 29 per cent.) and is expected to rise to around 1.2m by 2003/04. I hope this is helpful.