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24 Jan 2007 : Column 1863W—continued

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many Jobcentre Plus staff he expects to work full time on manual processing of the £10 benefit disregard to cases on the original child maintenance scheme as described on page 35 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’. [113544]

Mr. Plaskitt: Ending the requirement that parents with care claiming benefits be treated as applying for
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child maintenance will free up resource in Jobcentre Plus, allowing Jobcentre Plus staff to apply the £10 disregard as an integral part of processing the benefit application, using the existing IT. We do not expect there to be full-time manual processing of the disregard.

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many child maintenance applications were received by Jobcentre Plus in each year since 2001. [113545]

Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is the matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.

Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 24 January 2007:

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how he plans to assess families on the current child support system in order to focus transitional arrangements on the poorest families first as described on page 53 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’; [113547]

(2) whether legislation will be required to gather the information required to assess families on the current child support system in order to focus transitional arrangements on the poorest families first as described on p.53 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’; and what the resource implications are of the carrying out of these assessments; [113553]

(3) if he will consider both families of parents with care and families of non-resident parents when considering the prioritisation of the poorest families as described on p.53 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’. [113554]

Mr. Plaskitt: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC) will be responsible for developing the detailed proposals for the transition of existing cases to the new system for child maintenance. The principles guiding this, as set out in the White Paper, ‘A new system of child maintenance’ (Cm 6979), will be to ensure that the transition to the new regime is driven by child poverty considerations. This may mean focusing efforts initially on parents
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with care who have yet to receive a maintenance assessment to allow them opportunity to secure maintenance payments.

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the funding which will be made available to support the Child Support Operational Improvement Plan discussed on page 54 of the White Paper, A new system of child maintenance, in each year from 2007-08 to 2013-14. [113549]

Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is the matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to the right hon. Member with the information requested.

Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 24 January 2007:

£ million

2006-07

5.9

2007-08

66.8

2008-09

47.3

Total

120


Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the possibility of extending the proposal to use the latest available tax year information as the basis for calculating a child maintenance liability, made in the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’ to (a) existing cases on the Child Support Agency (CSA) system and (b) new applications to the CSA with effect from a date in late 2007. [113557]

Mr. Plaskitt: Latest tax year information can only be used in calculating the income of a non-resident parent
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if gross income is used, rather than net. The primary legislation currently in force for all child support cases requires that net income be used. Therefore the use of latest tax year information can only begin after primary legislation has altered the basis for calculating income and this has been followed by secondary legislation setting out detailed rules. In addition to these legislative issues, an effective operational system for the transfer of information will need to be developed, once Parliament has approved the use of gross income as the basis of liability. For all of these reasons, introduction by the end of 2007 is not possible.

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the impact on pension contributions of the decision to use gross rather than net weekly income as the basis for calculating maintenance liabilities as proposed in the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’. [113558]

Mr. Plaskitt: As stated at paragraph 4.18 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’ (Cm 6979) published on 13 December, further detailed work is needed to determine how the new system of assessing liability will treat pension contributions, because the tax system handles different types of pension contributions differently.

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the compatibility of the proposal to explore the scope for legislation to enable the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to authorise financial institutions to pay maintenance owed from a non-resident parent's account proposed on page 73 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’ with UK and European human rights legislation. [113562]

Mr. Plaskitt: As part of the policy development process, we will consider compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights of the proposals announced in the White Paper, ‘A new system of child maintenance’, including administrative Deduction Orders.

Child Poverty

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many children were in poverty whose parents were (a) in work and (b) receiving benefits in each of the last five years. [102178]

Mr. Jim Murphy: The information is in the following tables.


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(a) Children in poverty (defined as those households with income below 60 per cent. of the GB median) whose parents were in work( 1) , 1997-98 to 2004-05
Number (million)
1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05

Before housing costs

1.5

1.5

1.5

1.3

1.3

1.3

1.3

1.2

After housing costs

1.9

2.0

1.9

1.8

1.8

1.7

1.7

1.7

(1) In work has been defined as where the economic status of the family unit is one of the following:
one or more self-employed
single/couple all in full-time work
couple/one in full-time, one part-time
couple, one full-time, one not working
no full-time, one or more part-time.
Source:
Family Resources Survey 1996-97 to 2004-05.

(b) Children in poverty (defined as those households with income below 60 per cent. of the GB median) whose parents were receiving benefits, 1997-98 to 2004-05. Virtually all families with children received child benefit therefore the numbers given are the total number of families with children in poverty, including all those with parents in work
Number (million)
1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05

Before housing costs

3.1

3.1

2.9

2.6

2.6

2.6

2.5

2.4

After housing costs

4.1

4.1

4.0

3.8

3.7

3.5

3.4

3.3

Source:
Family Resources Survey 1996-97 to 2004-05.

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what background data supports the estimate that child maintenance payments lift 100,000 children out of poverty made on page 17 of the White Paper ‘A new system of child maintenance’. [113445]

Mr. Plaskitt: Analysis of data from the 2003-04 Family Resources Survey suggests that if no one received any maintenance, then 100,000 extra children would be living in poverty.

Child Support

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on the role to be played by the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service under future arrangements for child support. [114354]

Mr. Plaskitt: Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills meet frequently on a range of issues of common interest, including child maintenance reform where both Departments are working together to ensure that parents are supported to realise their responsibilities to support their children.

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many claimants in (a) the United Kingdom, (b) each region and (c) each London borough did not receive the full child support payments to which they were entitled in each of the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [114645]

Mr. Plaskitt: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) on 19 December 2006, Official Report, columns 1984-7W.

Child Support Agency

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether the existing chief executive of the Child Support Agency (CSA) will also be chief executive of the new body set up to replace the CSA; and if he will make a statement. [101296]

Mr. Plaskitt: As we announced in the White Paper, we will establish a Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC) to replace the Child Support Agency. C-MEC will be led by the new position of Commissioner for Child Maintenance.

We expect to make key C-MEC appointments in 2007-8. These appointments will be on a provisional basis (pending Royal Assent of a Bill to reform the child maintenance system). New senior appointments will follow guidelines from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA).

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff in each Child Support Agency call centre were assigned to the legacy child support computer system at the end of each month since January 2006; and how many staff were assigned to the new CS2 system during that period. [112925]

Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is the matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to right hon. Member with the information requested.

Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 24 January 2007:


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