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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. 

NOTES TO EDITORS

1.  The Child Maintenance & Enforcement Commission is a new body responsible for the child maintenance system in Great Britain.  The Commission’s role is to promote financial responsibility for children; offer the Child Maintenance Options information and support service; and to develop and direct the statutory child maintenance service currently provided by the Child Support Agency.

2. The Child Support Agency has not been ‘replaced’ by the Commission. The Commission is developing an entirely new statutory maintenance scheme that will replace the two schemes currently provided by the CSA from 2011.  The CSA name and ‘brand’ will remain in use until all of its cases have been closed and parents have been invited to apply to the new scheme. This process will take until 2013/14 to complete.     

3. Full details of the latest Quarterly Summary of Statistics from the CSA can be viewed at http://www.childmaintenance.org/ .

4. Child Maintenance Options can be accessed by visiting www.cmoptions.org  or calling the freephone number 0800 9880988.