Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average deduction of wages was for (a) one child, (b) two children and (c) three children by (i) the Child Support Agency and (ii) the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

The following table provides the average quarterly amounts paid through a deduction from earning order/request for each available quarter in the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Figures are up to the quarter ending September 2018. This is consistent with the latest Official Statistics on the Child Maintenance Service and the Child Support Agency (CSA).

Data relating to the Child Maintenance Service is not readily available before July 2017.

For the Child Support Agency, in the quarter ending September 2018, there were no liabilities for cases with 3 or more children.

Figures are rounded to the nearest £.

Figures for three or more children are presented together as the rate at which a non-resident/paying parent is liable to pay does not change after three children.

The caseload on CSA is falling at a faster rate as we are approaching the end of the Case Closure programme. We have now ended liabilities on the majority of CSA cases and will be taking steps to conclude the remaining cases before the end of 2018.

1. Figures for CSA in June 2018 and September 2018 are based on less than 200 cases. The small number of cases in this period helps to explain the greater variation in average amounts in these quarters.