The Child Support Agency (CSA) ended the financial year with another quarter of stable performance.
In the year to March, a total of £1,150 million was collected or arranged by the Agency - up from £1,146m in the year to December 2010. A total of 867,800 children are currently benefiting from payments, up by 26,000 on the previous quarter. 77.6% of parents who were expected to make payments did so within the quarter, up from 75.8% in the previous quarter.
The performance is underpinned by a significant enforcement effort targeted on parents who have gone three months or more without paying. The Agency has:
- Increased its use of deduction orders from wages and bank accounts.
- Started possession action against more houses.
- Asked the courts to jail or disqualify from driving more parents who have refused to pay maintenance.
The figures, revealed in latest CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics, show the Agency is continuing to achieve more for children, despite the challenging economic climate. They also provide a solid platform for the Coalition Government's child maintenance reforms announced recently.
“I am pleased the Government has confirmed that the two Child Support Agency schemes will be replaced by the single future statutory child maintenance scheme which we in the Commission have been developing for the past two years,” said Child Maintenance Commissioner Stephen Geraghty.
“Although performance has improved over the past few years and is now stable, running multiple child support schemes and IT systems is costly and inefficient. The future statutory scheme will bring the benefits to children and the taxpayer which are now needed.”
