Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2016 to Questions 47096, 47097 and 47098, what data gathering methods are undertaken by the Child Maintenance Service to track (a) deduction from earnings or benefits orders, (b) deduction from bank account orders and (c) liability orders which the Child Maintenance Service has served on absent parents to recover payments due to parents with custody.

When a paying parent defaults on a payment without reasonable justification, the Child Maintenance Service will take appropriate action to recover the missed payment and re-establish compliance. This action could include deduction from earnings, benefits or directly from bank accounts, or enforcement via the courts such as a liability order.

The system generates compliance data that tracks the payment for internal management information purposes. The Child Maintenance Service can see how many cases are set to pay by each method, and whether or not they are compliant. If a payment under one of these methods fails, a case worker will be prompted to take further action.