We are getting tougher on parents who avoid their financial responsibility to their children. If parents fail to pay child maintenance, we will take action to get the money they owe.
We can use a range of powers to get parents to pay. We can take the money direct from their wages. We can also use the courts to claim the money they owe, this includes:
- Seizing non-resident parents' belongings and selling them
- Freezing money belonging to, or owed to them
- Registering their debt so that it affects the transfer or sale of property or assets
- Forcing the sale of property owned by the non-resident parent
- Confiscating their driving licence or stopping them from getting one for up to two years
- Sending them to prison.
Taking money from wages
If the parent has a job the first thing we try is to take the money direct from their wages. This is known as a 'deduction from earnings order'.
We can take up to 40% of the parent's net income to cover their regular child maintenance and contributions towards any payments they have missed. If the deduction from earnings order will not fully recover child maintenance arrears within two years, we can take action to collect any outstanding amount through the courts at the same time.
Every hour we issue 25 new orders to ask employers to take money from wages.
For new cases we aim to do this within four months from when we first told the parent what they should pay. Employers are required by law to take maintenance from non-resident parents' wages if we tell them to.
If the parent gets benefits, pension or a War Pension, we will take the money direct from their benefits or pension. If they are in Her Majesty's Armed Forces and have failed to make their payments, we will send a request to the Ministry of Defence to take the amount owed.
If the parent is self-employed we can still take action through the courts to make them pay.
Every day 35 non-paying parents have their cases passed onto courts.
Taking action through the courts
If we can't take money from the non-resident parent's wages we will apply to the courts for a liability order for the missed child maintenance. We will then take legal action to get the money owed.
In Great Britain we were granted 13,335 liability orders between February 2006 and January 2007, a 25.7% increase on the previous year.
The legal action we then take depends on if the parent lives in England and Wales or in Scotland.
In certain circumstances we might also be able to take action if the parent lives abroad. If we can't take action we can still tell the parent with care who to get in touch with to take up their case.
