The national charity for single parent families has reported on child maintenance debt collection, in the context of the closing down of the Child Support Agency and its replacement by the Child Maintenance Service. Across the two systems, total child maintenance debt stands at £3,914 million. Concerned that efforts to collect this are decreasing, Gingerbread makes recommendations including:
- An allocation of extra resources to child maintenance debt collection work based on the fee income generated from CMS collection charges
- An intensive push on enforcement action over the next three years, to help create a new culture where parents know non-payment of maintenance obligations will not be tolerated
- CSA and CMS arrears for children need to be pursued with equal vigour. A public key performance indicator is needed, to drive progress and create greater transparency in the recovery of maintenance arrears owed to today’s children
- Greater government accountability to individual parents with care regarding the collection of maintenance owed to them
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