News
More children than ever benefiting from child maintenance.
29 July 2009
Almost 794,000 children are benefiting as the Child Support Agency collected or arranged £1,136 million in child maintenance across Great Britain over the past twelve months.
National Statistics released today show between July 2008 and June 2009, the CSA also continued to recover unpaid maintenance for children, with £157m in arrears collected in Great Britain in the last year.
The latest figures show:
- In the quarter ending June 2009, 793,900 children were benefiting from maintenance via the statutory maintenance service. This represents an increase of 14,100 children compared to just three months previously in March 2009
- The CSA collected or arranged £1,136 million in child maintenance in the year ending June 2009, a record-breaking amount and an increase of £4.4m from the 12 months to March 2009
- The CSA has significantly increased the number of parents paying for their children. In the quarter ending June 2009, in 72.3% of cases where there is a liability to pay maintenance, non-resident parents made payments via the CSA's collection service or through a Maintenance Direct arrangement. This is an increase of 1.8% from 70.5% in March 2009
- Clients are seeing a more efficient service, with 84% of new applications being cleared within 12 weeks and the CSA answering 99% of telephone calls available to answer, with an average waiting time of 8 seconds.
Child Maintenance Commissioner, Stephen Geraghty, said:
These steady improvements in child maintenance are making a real difference to families across Great Britain. In just three months to June 2009, an extra 11,100 families benefited from maintenance.
The changes we are making continue to create a solid foundation for the Commission's work as we move towards a new child maintenance system, giving parents more choice than ever to suit their own circumstances.
The CSA is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, which is developing an entirely new maintenance scheme to replace the two CSA schemes from 2011.