Children: Maintenance
(asked on 30th August 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many liability orders have been pursued by the Child Maintenance Service since 1 August 2023.
A principle of child maintenance is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support. Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable the Child Maintenance Service offers a statutory scheme for those parents who need it.
The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement which includes liability orders. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
The Department plans to bring forward changes to allow Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to make an administrative liability order against a person who has failed to pay child maintenance and is in arrears. The administrative liability order will replace the current requirement for the CMS to apply to the court for a liability order, which can take up to 22 weeks. We expect the new liability order process to take around six to eight weeks, meaning CMS can use its strong enforcement powers more quickly for those who seek to avoid their financial obligations to their children.
We will bring forward the legislation as soon as possible.
The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The next release to June 2024 is scheduled for Tuesday 24th September 2024 at 09:30am.
The statistics for liability orders are shown in Table 7.1 of the National tables. The relevant data taken from that table, covering the period requested, is shown in the following table:
Liability Orders in process and money collected in Great Britain, and Liability Orders applied for and granted in England and Wales, July 2023 to March 2024
| Jul to Sep 23 | Oct to Dec 23 | Jan to Mar 24 |
Liability Orders in process at end of quarter | 7,500 | 6,400 | 6,200 |
Liability Orders applied for during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 4,100 | 4,500 | 5,300 |
Liability Orders granted during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 3,600 | 3,900 | 4,400 |
Liability Orders withdrawn or dismissed during quarter (excludes Scotland) | 300 | 300 | 400 |
Money collected during quarter from Paying Parents with a Liability Order in process (£ millions) | 2.4 | 2.1 | 2.1 |
Source: Child Maintenance Service Administrative and Clerical Data
Notes:
- This table includes actions taken to collect both maintenance arranged by the Child Maintenance Service, and Child Support Agency arrears that have been transitioned to Child Maintenance Service systems. This may include actions taken against parents for whom no ongoing maintenance has been arranged under the Child Maintenance Service.
- Figures are rounded to the nearest 100 or £100,000.
- "In Process" counts give the number of Paying Parents for which the relevant enforcement action was ongoing at the end of the quarter. "Ongoing" includes the period in which the action was being formally considered, in addition to the period during which the action was actively being progressed.
- A Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid child maintenance. Courts can grant a Liability Order, which is a legal recognition that a debt is owed. This enables recovery of the debt through further Civil Enforcement Actions, e.g. referral to an enforcement agency.
- Some Liability Order figures are restricted to England and Wales and exclude Scotland, this is indicated in the row title where relevant.