Debate contribution: Child Support (Management of Payments and Arrears) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2023
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 10 June 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Child Support (Management of Payments and Arrears) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2023
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4494949
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I beg to move
The regulations, which came into operation on 26 February this year, enable my Department to make amendments to child maintenance legislation and overall improvements to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). The regulations allow for the write-off of arrears of less than £7. That is intended to help reduce the overall arrears balance and extinguish liability for the arrears of child support maintenance where it appears to my Department that it would be unfair or otherwise inappropriate to enforce liability for the arrears. That will ensure that efforts and resources can be focused on taking action to collect unpaid arrears in the cases that will make the biggest difference to children. In the regulations, we take the pragmatic approach of bringing forward powers to write off minimal amounts of less than £7 on a small number of inactive cases. The reason for the figure of £7 is that the minimum child maintenance payment is £7 a week. Those cases would otherwise have been closed were it not for the small outstanding balances. As of February 2024, there were approximately 193 relevant cases held by CMS operations. It is estimated that the maximum total amount of arrears across those cases is £1,306. The regulations permit the Department to write off arrears where the arrears have accrued under an application for child maintenance; the arrears relate to a case where the maintenance calculation has ceased in specific circumstances; the arrears are less than £7; and the paying parent has failed to make any payments in the past three months. We introduce the measures for two pragmatic reasons. First, the reality is that keeping open that small number of cases with low levels of arrears requires considerable human and financial resources, and taking the required actions to recover such small amounts of arrears often costs more than the actual value of the arrears. If the cases were to be left open, the cost of maintaining the cases could increase for years, with no greater chance of money being paid to receiving parents. The regulations will ensure that the Child Maintenance Service caseworkers' time and effort are used efficiently. Secondly, given that the CMS will close only cases in which the service has stopped calculating child maintenance payments, it is likely that payments will no longer be needed. That could be because the child has become an adult; the parents have reconciled; or the paying parent has, sadly, passed away. Therefore, it makes sense to close those cases, not least for the certainty and clarity that it provides for families. The full details of the criteria that permit the writing off of arrears are set out in the regulations, but they include where maintenance calculations have ceased and where no payments have been made in the previous three months. The changes build on several improvements that we have already made and are among the first in a further wave of measures that we plan to bring forward to ensure that the service is more accessible, simpler, speedier and, ultimately, gets more money to more children more quickly.
516 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.73).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.73 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.98 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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