Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to reduce average waiting times to access independent tribunals to hear appeals from parents against Child Maintenance Service decisions.

Appeals against Child Maintenance Service decisions are heard by the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal, which is part of the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

Reducing the outstanding caseload is the key measure to bring down the waiting times for tribunal hearings. We are currently focused on reducing the outstanding caseload in the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, the deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology as appropriate. If an expedited hearing is requested, a Judge or Legal Officer will make a decision on that issue, taking all the circumstances into account.

Data on Tribunals performance is published by the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis. Receipts, disposals and the outstanding caseload for individual Chambers in the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal can be found at the link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.