Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much Child Maintenance Service payment was reduced to receiving parents because of “special expenses” relating to travel to visit family in (1) 2020–21, (2) 2021–22, (3) 2022–23, and (4) 2023–24.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Special expense variations allow the Child Maintenance Service to look at some circumstances which are not covered by the basic maintenance calculation. A parent may apply for a variation at any time during the life of their case. If we accept a variation and it subsequently succeeds, we adjust the maintenance calculation accordingly.
Special expense variations are:
The Child Maintenance Service holds collective data for all special expense variation categories but we do not hold specific data for each individual category. As data is not readily available, to provide this would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people and how many full-time equivalent posts work in the Child Maintenance Service (1) as civil servants, and (2) as contractors.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 30th March 2025, the number of employees working for the Child Maintenance Service is 5,055. This equates to the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 4449.65
The breakdown for (1) civil servants, and (2) contractors are as follow:
| Number of Employees | FTE |
DWP Civil Servants (GB) | 4,078 | 3502.73 |
DfCNI Civil Servants (NI) | 651 | 620.92 |
Contractors (Recruitment Agency NI) | 326 | 326 |
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many, and what proportion of, parents in arrears on Child Maintenance Service payments are unemployed.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to ensuring separated parents support their children financially, taking robust enforcement action against those who do not. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers, including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison.
If a paying parent is in receipts of benefits due to being unemployed, the CMS can set up a deduction from the benefit to collect ongoing maintenance, or arrears in the case of Collect and Pay. The CMS can deduct £8.40 a week towards ongoing maintenance or arrears from certain prescribed benefits. Deductions towards arrears and ongoing maintenance are not taken at the same time. Arrears deductions are taken only after ongoing liability has been satisfied.
The Information on the full arrears status of those parents is not readily available and to providei t would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many complaints the Independent Case Examiner has received in the last three years (1) in total and (2) regarding child maintenance; and of those, how many were found in favour of the complainant.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
ICE does not accept every case that it receives, for example, ICE cannot accept a case until it has exhausted DWP’s complaints process (premature referrals), nor can it accept those outside its jurisdiction.
ICE only considers complaints about maladministration or service failures and cannot deal with complaints about matters of law, that are, or have been, subject to legal proceedings, about how any of the businesses fulfil their responsibilities as an employer or any that involve the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Northern Ireland Ombudsman.
Once a case has been accepted, if appropriate, ICE will attempt to broker a resolution with the customer before gathering all of the evidence relating to the case. Where resolution cannot be reached, evidence is collated, and an investigation is conducted. On the basis of findings made, the case may be upheld/partially upheld in favour of the customer or not upheld. The number of cases received, accepted, and upheld/partially upheld, is in the table below.
| 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
Total* Received | 4911 | 5824 | 7149 |
CMS Received | 1309 | 1519 | 1827 |
Total* Accepted | 1711 | 1861 | 2214 |
CMS Accepted | 785 | 731 | 981 |
Total* upheld/partially upheld | 584 | 765 | 893 |
CMS upheld/partially upheld | 311 | 474 | 459 |
*ICE reviews complaints made by customers of the Department for Work and Pensions (which includes the Child Maintenance Service), Northern Ireland Department for Communities – benefits, pensions and child maintenance only, contracted DWP services and Pension Protection Fund.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they intend to commence sections 2, 3 and 4(1) to (4) of the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders (ALOs), removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order. Introducing this process should enable the Child Maintenance Service to take faster action against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities and get money to children more quickly. We are working with His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government to establish a process for implementing ALOs and plan to introduce regulations to Parliament by the end of this year.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the current and each of the last four financial years, how many 16–24 year olds are receiving personal independence payments at (1) the lower rate for daily living, (2) the higher rate for daily living, (3) the lower rate for mobility, and (4) the higher rate for mobility; and of those, how many have depression and anxiety as the primary reason for receiving that benefit.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The table below shows the number of claimants aged 16-24 receiving the different award types for both daily living and mobility components of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and for those aged 16-24 whose primary condition was Anxiety or Depression.
Table 1: Number of claimants aged 16-24 years receiving PIP in England and Wales by award rate for Daily Living and Mobility, split by all medical conditions and Anxiety and Depression only.
|
| 2020_21 | 2021_22 | 2022_23 | 2023_24 | 2024_25* | |||||
DL | Mob | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D |
Enh | Enh | 111,700 | 4,800 | 132,900 | 6,900 | 164,600 | 10,300 | 196,700 | 14,000 | 216,500 | 16,400 |
Std | 39,200 | 5,400 | 45,100 | 7,400 | 53,300 | 10,700 | 63,300 | 15,200 | 70,400 | 18,200 | |
Nil | 16,500 | 3,300 | 15,200 | 3,200 | 15,300 | 3,500 | 14,700 | 3,700 | 14,700 | 3,800 | |
Std | Enh | 8,100 | 1,100 | 9,100 | 1,200 | 10,800 | 1,600 | 12,200 | 1,900 | 13,300 | 2,100 |
Std | 15,900 | 3,300 | 16,900 | 3,600 | 19,200 | 4,800 | 21,600 | 6,100 | 23,500 | 6,900 | |
Nil | 25,600 | 7,900 | 25,600 | 8,300 | 26,800 | 9,100 | 27,300 | 9,700 | 27,900 | 9,900 | |
Nil | Enh | 4,700 | 400 | 5,400 | 500 | 6,700 | 800 | 7,900 | 1,000 | 8,900 | 1,200 |
Std | 3,600 | 800 | 4,000 | 1,000 | 5,400 | 1,700 | 7,000 | 2,400 | 8,600 | 3,000 | |
Notes:
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people have applied for Pension Credit since 5 July 2024; and how many have been approved.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Pension credit statistics are collated on a weekly (Monday – Sunday) cycle. This means we cannot provide a response aligned to 5 July 2024. However, we can provide a count of claims and awards from week commencing 8 July 2024, as follows:
DWP currently works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.
Please note, the awarded volumes since 8 July 2024 will include some claims that were made before 5 July 2024. This is because the Department currently reports clearance times by the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Statistics on Pension Credit award volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This publication includes weekly numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK.
The next publication of Pension Credit application statistics is due around the end of February 2025 and will cover the data up to week commencing 10 February 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of individuals eligible to make voluntary contributions for gaps in their National Insurance records for 2006–2018 who would receive more income by not doing so and instead claiming Pension Credit.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such estimate has been made. Whether an individual should or should not make voluntary National Insurance contributions will depend upon their circumstances. It is entirely a decision for the individual to make but it may not always be beneficial.
Before buying voluntary contributions, people under State Pension age can use the online Check your State Pension forecast service to get a forecast and see whether paying gaps will increase their entitlement.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 February 2024 to Question 15000 on Pension Credit and State Retirement Pensions: Suffolk Coastal, what estimate his Department has made of when that data will be updated and made available.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Department publishes quarterly statistics on recipients of a wide range of benefits, including State Pension and Pension Credit, by various geographical breakdowns including Westminster parliamentary constituency, on Stat-Xplore. The latest statistics are available up to quarter ending May 2023 for State Pension, and quarter ending August 2023 for Pension Credit. The State Pension statistics were recently temporarily suspended so are currently only available to May 2023, with a progress update on their re-instatement due on 13 March 2024.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to commence section 25 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023, it amended section 32M of the Child Support Act 1991 as inserted by section 25 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008.
When commenced it will streamline enforcement processes by removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order and enable the Secretary of State to issue an administrative liability order. This will reduce the process from 22 weeks to as low as 6 weeks, making it quicker to get money to children.
A public consultation to seek views on proposed regulations to be introduced for administrative liability orders concluded in November 2023, and the Government response was published on 12 February 2024. Legislation will be brought forward as soon as possible.