We use a range of tools to track down parents who avoid us. These powers are helping us to look into thousands of cases where parents have avoided paying child maintenance.
Nowhere to hide
We can track non-paying parents down by:
- Accessing personal information held by other government departments or agencies, such as Jobcentre Plus, HM Revenue & Customs and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (the DVLA)
- Searching information from credit reference agencies
- Working with private-sector specialist tracing companies on the most difficult cases.
It is a criminal offence if someone fails to give us information or gives us information that they know is false. We can take them to court and they could be fined up to £1,000. We are successful in around 95% of these cases.
