Stunell Slams Child Support Agency Blunders

11.25.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 18th Oct 2005

Today, local MP, Andrew Stunell has condemned the Child Support Agency for errors that have cost residents of Stockport hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Hazel Grove MP, Andrew Stunell said:

"It is a scandal that the Child Support Agency still owes £869 million to 1.4 million parents across the country.

"I am deeply concerned that a backlog is developing as new applications are piling up whilst thousands of existing cases are stranded in no mans land.

"I meet far too many angry and frustrated people looking for help after being messed around by the CSA."

Mr Stunell added:

"I am calling on the Government to place child maintenance collection with Revenue and Customs to ensure that parents get the money they deserve and this bureaucratic nightmare gets sorted."

ENDS

Note to Editors

The text of the Parliamentary Motion is:

That this House regrets that after two years and two chief executives the Child Support Agency now owes £869 million in unpaid maintenance to 1.4 million parents including 260,000 who have received no payments at all as well as a further £1 billion written off as uncollectable, that new applications for maintenance are still not being cleared at a rate equivalent to intake and that the compliance rate for all cases is still only 75 per cent.; further regrets that 714,000 families still have cases on the old computer system operating on the old scheme rules and that a quarter of all maintenance calculations are still incorrect; and therefore calls on the Government urgently to formulate a long-term contingency plan and to give serious consideration to placing child maintenance collection with Revenue and Customs.