News
Child Maintenance collections still increasing under new rules as CSA further improves its service to parents
28 January 2009
The first quarterly performance statistics since last October's child maintenance rule changes show the Child Support Agency (CSA) is continuing to deliver more money to parents with care.
During 2008, the CSA collected or arranged a total of £1,112 million - an increase of £137 million from the total for 2007 and up from £798 million in the year to March 2005.
The Agency has also continued to increase the recovery of unpaid maintenance and arrest the growth of maintenance debt. £156m in outstanding arrears has been collected since December 2007 - including a quarterly increase of £7m since September 2008 - reflecting the Agency's determination to pursue non-resident parents who fail to meet their obligations to their children.
These are the first quarterly figures since the removal of the compulsion on parents with care who are claiming benefits to use the CSA to collect or arrange maintenance payments. The changes, which came into force on October 27th 2008, affected around 400,000 CSA clients who are now free to make private maintenance arrangements outside of the state system provided by the Agency.
Allowing freedom of choice to all parents has brought a modest but unsurprising reduction in the flow of new cases onto the CSA's books and this is reflected in these figures,
says Child Maintenance Commissioner Stephen Geraghty.
Overall they clearly reflect strong and continuing progress in the efficiency and quality of the service it provides. With only three months to go until the completion of the Operational Improvement Plan launched in 2006, the CSA is well on track to meet the vast majority of the targets set for it by the Government.
The figures also show dramatic reductions in the volume of uncleared cases (down by 48% between March and December 08) as well as telephone waiting times. In the nine months to the end of December 2008 the CSA answered 99% of telephone calls available to answer, with an average waiting time of 15 seconds.
All parents seeking information and support on the new choices available to them under the new rules are advised to take advantage of the new Child Maintenance Options service by visiting www.cmoptions.org or calling the free phone number 0800 988 0988.