Anger of lone parents as fathers owe £720m

Absent fathers owe more than £720million in maintenance payments promised to their children, MPs were told today.

Less than half of single parents receive the money agreed by their former partners, the Work and Pensions Committee heard.

The One Parent Families charity said the Child Support Agency was partly to blame for the failures and claimed some parents had given up on the agency.

The charity told MPs there was now "widespread exasperation and anger" among the many lone parents who are still not receiving child maintenance entitlements. Many are disappointed that reforms to the CSA introduced last March have not delivered the promised improvements.

Figures show that up until June, the CSA had taken on 404,616 child support applications under the new system but has cleared only 48 per cent of these.

By March, £720million owed in child maintenance was considered recoverable. The CSA collected 43 per cent of the amount of money it expected to collect.