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

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Green on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in how many cases child support arrears have been written off under the Child Support Management of Payments and Arrears (Amendment) Regulations 2012 since November 2012; and how much has been written off in such a fashion.

Steve Webb

The circumstances, provided for in The Child Support Management of Payments and Arrears (Amendment) Regulations 2012, in which debt can be written off are:

– Where the Parent with Care (PWC) requests it;

– Where the Non-resident Parent (NRP) has died prior to 25/01/2010, or no further action can be taken to recover debt from the estate;

– Where the PWC has died;

– Where there is Interim Maintenance Assessment (IMA) debt and the IMA was in place between 5th April 93 and 18th April 95, and the assessment cannot be adjusted in light of a parent’s actual income for this form of debt when it arises over that period; or,

– Where the NRP has been told that no further action would ever be taken to collect the debt.

Since the introduction of the write off powers in November 2012 the Department has written off the following amounts:

– Financial year ended 31 March 2013 £1,133,310

– Financial year ended 31 March 2014 £15,480,677

The Department does not hold information on the number of cases this relates to.