£45m in child support held up by IT issue

Problems with the Child Support Agency's (CSA) computer system are costing 95,000 single parents £45m a year, claim the Liberal Democrats.

The losses result from non-payment of £10-a-week child maintenance for new claimants on the agency's system, that has not been paid to those on the old computers, according to Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Steve Webb.

The £400m CSA system went live in March 2003 - nearly 18 months late. The government decided old cases would only be transferred when the new system was working well - a year later some cases have still not been moved.

Webb says estimates from Commons Library staff show 75,000 single parents are not receiving the £10 payment and another 20,000 are missing an average of £14 a week.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: 'We are determined not to cause problems where maintenance is already flowing to children, by attempting to transfer to a system that isn't ready. It is working well for many newer cases and more than 16,500 parents have already benefited from a total of more than £1.1m in payments.'