Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how long records of conversations relating to the (a) Child Support Agency and (b) Child Maintenance Service by phone or email with employers are kept.

The Child Maintenance Service is compliant with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Records of telephone conversations are deleted 14 months after the date of the telephone conversation. Email records are retained for the life of a case, and for 14 months after a case has been closed. Records are automatically deleted after this point.

The Child Support Agency is also compliant with GDPR in respect of telephone conversations and the same approach is taken to these as with the Child Maintenance Service, with automatic deletion of records 14 months after the date of the telephone conversation. Email records are not automatically deleted, and therefore manual action is taken to periodically remove these once they are no longer required for case-related activity.