Q. What are you doing to find the parents who deliberately avoid theSMS?
A. Unfortunately there are some parents who go to great lengths to avoid paying what they owe for their children.
The SMS is making more use of information held by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and credit reference agencies to trace these parents. In particularly difficult cases, we are now referring cases to specialist private sector tracing agencies.
Since October 2006, many SMS employees have had access to data from credit reference agencies to help them trace non-resident parents who previously could not be found through other means.
Q. What do you do to stop people giving false information, such as lying about their name or address?
A. It is a criminal offence if we ask someone to provide information and they fail to do so or give us information that they know is false. If someone fails to give us the information we need, or gives us information that they know is false, they could receive a fine of up to £1,000.
If a non-resident parent does not supply us with the information required we can apply a 'default maintenance decision' at a level above the average weekly maintenance calculation. We will attempt to enforce payment of this liability until the non-resident parent supplies the required information and a more accurate calculation can be made.
Q. What is the SMS doing internally to improve things?
A. We are increasing our enforcement action as part of our Operational Improvement Plan.
We are deploying more people on enforcement work including work associated with the referral of debt cases to debt-collection agencies.
We have secured changes in the law which means we can now collect up to 40% of non-resident parents' net income.
Q. Does the SMS demand for arrears to be 'paid immediately'?
A. The action we take depends on each case and parents would be notified of any action to be taken. They would be asked to contact us as soon as possible to discuss their situation and how they will pay the money back.
We may be able to take into account the non-resident parent's circumstances and can offer a number of payment options. If these are declined or the parent does not keep to the agreed arrangements we will take further action.
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