§ Mr. FearnTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many parents with care spent the Christmas and New Year holiday period with no regular payments from non-resident parents in respect of the maintenance of their children; and how many children were affected. [146167]
§ Angela EagleI have been asked to reply.
The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mr. Doug Smith. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Mike Isaac to Mr. Ronnie Fearn, dated 1 February 2001:
325WI am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Health about the Child Support Agency.Mr Smith is unavailable and therefore I am writing to you on his behalf.The information is not available in the format or for the time period requested. Such information as is available is in the table at Annex A, and shows statistics for the quarter ending August 2000.The figures have been broken down to show the status of the Parent With Care.Parents with Care on Income Support (IS) or Jobseekers' Allowance (Income Based) (JSA(IB)) whose Child Maintenance is paid to the Agency by the Non Resident Parent are protected against non payment of Child Maintenance. This is because IS/JSA(IB) is paid in full to the customer and any maintenance received by the CSA is retained by the Secretary of State to offset benefit payments.Figures do not include cases that are not paid through the Agency collection service. In these cases the Non Resident Parent (NRP) pays Child Maintenance directly to the Parent With Care (PWC) is in receipt of IS or JSA(IB) the amount of benefit they receive will be reduced by an amount equal to the maintenance due.These figures do not include any cases where an assessment of maintenance is yet to be made.The Agency currently exceeds its Secretary of State target of making 98% of payments to Parents With Care within 10 days of receipt from the Non Resident Parent. From April 2000 to December 2000 2,397,676 payments were made to Parents With Care; 2,353,877 (98.9%) of these were made within 10 days of receipt.The Department's Analytical Services Division produces a CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics that is available in the House of Commons Library and you may find the information it contains of further interest.