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29 Oct 2007 : Column 741W—continued
The number of cases where the Child Support Agency is seeking to collect maintenance from a non-resident parent living in a London constituency is provided in the attached table. This includes all cases in which a positive maintenance liability exists. The available information relates to cases only, a non-resident parent may have more than one case.
Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many Child Support Agency cases in (a) the East of England and (b) Suffolk have been outstanding for more than five years. [159084]
Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Duncan Gilchrist, dated 29 October 2007:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Support Agency cases in (a) the East of England and (b) Suffolk have been outstanding for more than five years. [159084]
The Agency begins to process new applications as soon as they are received and continues until they have been cleared. It should be noted that that an outstanding or uncleared application is not necessarily the same as an unprocessed one. The amount of work required to clear a case and the time involved varies considerably depending on, amongst other things, the circumstances of the parents and how readily they co-operate with the Agency. Uncleared applications will be at varying stages in the application processes, with very few being completely unprocessed.
As at the end of September 2007, the Agency had 160 uncleared new scheme cases over 5 years old in the East of England of which 20 were in Suffolk. New scheme uncleared cases over 5 years old are those which were previously under the old scheme, and have been converted to the new scheme via a new scheme calculation. When a new child support application is made, it may be established that the case has one or more links, through the parent with care or non-resident parent or their partners, to existing cases. If a link is established to one or more cases on the old computer system (CSCS), these cases will be transferred to the new computer system (CS2), along with any further cases that are linked to this chain. This is known as reactive migration.
As at the end of September 2007, the Agency had, 1,750 transitional cases uncleared over 5 years old in the East of England of which 130 were in Suffolk. Transitional cases are those subject to the rules of the old Child Support Scheme but which are held on the new scheme computer system, CS2.
Management information on the number of uncleared cases broken down into regions or counties for old scheme cases processed on the CSCS system is not available.
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