Child Support Agency (Hansard, 18 June 2004)

§ Mr. Pond

The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mr. Doug Smith. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.

Letter from Mike Isaac to Mr. David Willets, dated 18 June 2004:

In reply to your recent Parliamentary questions about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As he is currently on leave I am replying on your behalf.

You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people were committed to prison because they had committed offences relating to the work of the Child Support Agency in each year since the Agency was established.

You then asked two further related questions, which requested information on the removal of driving licences: How many parents have failed to provide Child Support in each year since 1997: and of these how many have (a) received a driving ban and (b) received a jail sentence in each year; and The number of non-resident parents who have had their driving licences removed by the courts in each year since April 2001 as a result of the provisions introduced under the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000. The number of non-resident parents that have failed to make child maintenance payments since 1997 are shown as follows. The figures are taken from the 5 per cent. quarterly samples of the Child Support Computer System from March 1997 to February 2003. The data looks at compliance in every quarter of the year therefore those who are nil compliant will have been nil compliant within every quarter of the year.

1133W

£000
	Total cases with full maintenance Assessment	Number of non-resident parents that are nil compliant
1997–1998	674.3	45.3
1998–1999	854.2	57.7
1999–2000	967.2	63.8
2000–2001	1,052.6	63.9
2001–2002	1,075.6	59.0
2002–2003	1,116.4	53.2
Notes:
Figures are in thousands and rounded to the nearest hundred.
Committal action:
From March 1999 to May 2004 there have been 171 suspended committal sentences. The first specific reference we have to a non-resident parent serving a prison sentence is in 2002–2003. Information pre dating 2001–2002 does not specify whether the non-resident parent served a prison sentence; the records only show whether a warrant for committal was issued.
2001–2002—0 sentences served.
2002–2003—4, sentences served.
2003–2004—8 sentences served.
Removal of driving licences:
The power to withdraw driving licences was brought into effect on 2 April 2001 (under the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000)
2001–2002—3 suspended licence sentences issued.
2002–2003—1 driving licence removed and 7 suspended licence sentences issued.
2003–2004—1 driving licence removed and 9 suspended licence sentences issued.
Please note committal to prison or disqualification from driving is only considered after all other enforcement options have been attempted or discounted. We use these ultimate sanctions as the final lever to achieve compliance rather than as a punitive measure for those non-resident parents who will not pay. This explains the huge difference between the number of warrants we obtain and the number of driving licences withdrawn or prison sentences actually served.