Kate Green – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Green on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress has been made on his Department’s child maintenance arrears and compliance strategy for 2012 to 2017; and if he will make a statement.

Steve Webb

Since 2008 we have considerably slowed down the growth of arrears via faster case processing and better enforcement. The successful introduction of the new 2012 Child Maintenance Scheme allows most paying parents to be assessed more quickly, which reduces the number of cases that accrue arrears. The new Child Maintenance Scheme is also built to trigger notification of missed payments so we can investigate non-compliance earlier, reducing the time in which arrears could build.

We are also looking at new techniques for collecting older debt. The trial of the process of reclassifying arrears has concluded and we are analysing how this initiative might be used in the future.