LCQ20: Default on maintenance payments
22.2.2023

Following is a question by the Hon Doreen Kong and a written reply by the Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Miss Alice Mak, in the Legislative Council today (February 22): Question: It is learnt that the situation of default on maintenance payments has been worsening in recent years. On the other hand, the Government commissioned, through the Family Council, a research team in June 2018 to conduct a "Further Study on the Phenomenon of Divorce in Hong Kong", which would explore matters relating to maintenance payments. The Government indicated in April 2022 that the study was still underway. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council: (1) whether the authorities have completed compiling a report on the aforesaid study; if not, of the reasons for that; (2) whether it has compiled statistics on (i) the number of applications for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance caused by default on maintenance payments and (ii) the number of single-parent households eligible for applying for Working Family Allowance (with a breakdown by type of allowances) in the past five years; (3) whether it has compiled statistics on (i) the respective numbers of Judgment Summons hearings and applications for Attachment of Income Orders regarding the recovery of arrears of maintenance and (ii) the number of persons eligible for applying for legal aid to apply to the court for the enforcement of maintenance orders and, among them, the number of those who have already submitted relevant applications, in the past five years; and (4) as there are views that the measures launched by the Government to improve the system of enforcement of maintenance orders in the early 2000s have become outdated, whether the Government will consider officially rolling out relevant improvement work from this year onwards, such as setting up a dedicated government department to co-ordinate matters related to maintenance payments; if so, of the specific timetable of the work concerned; if not, the reasons for that? Reply: President, The Government is committed to enhancing the effectiveness of the system of collecting maintenance payments and enforcing maintenance orders, and enhances public understanding of the responsibilities of maintenance payers, the rights of maintenance payees and the services available to payees when they fail to receive maintenance payments by conducting publicity and education programmes. Having consulted the Labour and Welfare Bureau, the Judiciary and the Legal Aid Department (LAD), my consolidated reply to the Hon Doreen Kong's question is as follows: (1) The Government has commissioned, through the Family Council, a research team to conduct the "Further Study on the Phenomenon of Divorce in Hong Kong" (Study) for providing information on the demographic and socioeconomic landscape of divorce in Hong Kong and statistics on maintenance payments. The Study also examines the effectiveness of judgment summons proceedings in recovering default maintenance payments. The research team submitted a final report to the Family Council in late 2022. The research team has attempted to collect figures on maintenance payments. However, due to the lack of data including the number of maintenance orders issued each year, number of cases in default of maintenance payments and the amounts involved, the Study could not provide a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the situation of enforcement of maintenance orders in Hong Kong. The research team has recommended some legal measures and policy initiatives for the Government's consideration. These recommendations will be elaborated in Part (4). After deliberation, the Family Council has uploaded the Study to its website for public information. (2) The Government has all along put in place measures, including the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme and the Working Family Allowance (WFA) Scheme, to support persons and families facing economic difficulties, be it single parents or maintenance payees. Both schemes provide special assistance to meet the needs of single-parent families. For example, the CSSA Scheme provides a higher payment rate for single-parent families, whereas the WFA Scheme grants Child Allowance for each eligible child and the basic working hour requirement for a single-parent family is only 36 hours, which is much lower than the 144 hours per month required for a non-single-parent family. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) and the Working Family and Student Financial Assistance Agency do not maintain statistics on the applications for CSSA and WFA due to maintenance arrears. The number of single parent cases for the CSSA Scheme and number of single parent households under the WFA Scheme in the past five years are as follows: CSSA Scheme Year Number of CSSA single parent cases End December 2018 24 697 End December 2019 23 678 End December 2020 24 760 End December 2021 23 785 End December 2022 22 172 WFA Scheme Year Number of single parent households receiving allowances 2018-19 6 284 2019-20 7 167 2020-21 8 198 2021-22 7 522 2022-23 (as at 31 January 2023) 6 813 Note: Under the WFA Scheme, apart from Household Allowance, all single parent households will receive Child Allowance basing on the number of eligible children in the household. (3) According to the statistics provided by the Judiciary, the number of judgment summons hearings and applications for Attachment of Income Orders (AIOs) regarding the recovery of arrears of maintenance in the past five years are as follows: Year 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Number of judgment summons hearings 783 762 941 805 593 Number of applications for AIO 9 11 18 19 22 Number of AIOs made 14 13 3 8 5 Notes: 1. Judgment summons means a summons issued under an order made under rule 1(1), Order 48 of the Rules of the High Court requiring a judgment debtor to appear and be examined on oath as to his means. 2. An AIO aims to enable the payee to secure the amount of maintenance specified in the maintenance order on time. AIOs might not be made in the same year as the applications were received. LAD provides legal aid for eligible applicants who pass both the means and merits tests to recover arrears of maintenance. The number of legal aid certificates granted to aided persons by LAD relating to maintenance arrears in the past five years are as follows: Year 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Number of legal aid certificates 154 142 129 131 89 Note: Legal aid certificates might not be granted in the same year as the applications are received. The above figures only include the number of legal aid certificates granted for cases of recovery of maintenance arrears. LAD does not maintain statistics on those legal aid certificates granted and later extended to cover recovery of maintenance arrears. (4) Over the years, the Government has implemented a series of improvement measures to facilitate divorcees recovering maintenance payments. They include relaxing the requirement for the Court to make AIOs, imposing interest or surcharge against defaulting maintenance payers, allowing designated Government departments to disclose the addresses of maintenance payers upon the request of legal professionals where it is in compliance with relevant legislation, and adjusting upward the amount of monthly maintenance that may be exempted from the Director of Legal Aid's First Charge. At present, SWD will refer CSSA recipients in need to LAD for legal assistance in recovering maintenance payments. LAD will provide legal aid for eligible applicants who pass both the means and merits tests to recover arrears of maintenance. Moreover, since 2018, LAD and SWD have strengthened co-operation by streamlining the case referral procedures to expedite the processing of applications. LAD has also given seminars with SWD to help frontline staff understand the application procedures and eligibility criteria of legal aid, as well as the legislation on enforcement of maintenance orders. In addition, LAD has appointed a liaison officer to handle enquiries concerning referral of cases of legal aid from SWD for recovery of arrears of maintenance. As to the responsibilities of maintenance payers, the rights of maintenance payees and the services available to payees when they fail to receive maintenance payments, the Government and non-governmental organisations have made continued efforts in publicity and education. Regarding the suggestions on setting up a dedicated department by the Government to handle matters related to maintenance payment, the above Study looked into some models in other jurisdictions and the related administrative or legislative arrangements, and their pros and cons. Some policy and legal measures, including establishing a dedicated unit to assist in the implementation of a maintenance assurance scheme, were mentioned. The scheme was meant to enforce court orders to recover maintenance and deter defaults by for example, suspending passports and driving licenses of defaulting maintenance payers and relaying their personal particulars to credit reference agencies. The Family Council was aware of the controversies involved when deliberating the above suggestions. There were concerns about the rights of individuals and privacy, rendering doubts about the feasibility from the legal perspective. Experience of maintenance assurance schemes in other jurisdictions have suggested problems such as long processing time with only few cases handled, management problems, high administrative costs, etc. Coupled with the lack of comprehensive data relating to maintenance payment collected by the research team, the Family Council was of the view that the recommendations proposed in the Study would need careful consideration and the Government should attempt to collect more relevant data for further analysis. In this regard, we will liaise with relevant departments to try to gather more relevant information and data. Meanwhile, the Government will continue to assist people in need to recover maintenance payments by keeping the system of collection of maintenance payments and enforcement of maintenance orders under review.