25,800 Welsh Families not Receiving Owed Money by the CSA

4.42.00pm GMT Fri 19th Jan 2007

25,800 families in Wales are owed money which is supposed to have been collected by the CSA, according to new figures released.

Research by the Welsh Liberal Democrats shows that the region with the highest proportion of unsettled claims is Wales, where 1.29% of the entire adult population is owed money.

Commenting on these figures, Jenny Willott, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central and Member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, said:

"These figures are extremely worrying. Over 25,000 families in Wales are being forced to live without money that is rightfully theirs, a larger proportion of the population than any other area in the UK.

"This is yet one more example of the CSA that has failed hundreds of thousands of single parent families, leaving them struggling every day to make ends meet.

"The CSA must be scrapped, and replaced with a new organisation inside the Inland Revenue. Only there, where it has constant access to people's income details, will it be able to deduct money at source from those who refuse to pay.

"This Government has continually delayed reform of the CSA leaving thousands of people without the money to which they are entitled. Reform need to happen now."