• B.C.-wide, FMEP has about 45,000 cases, representing 85,000 parents and 64,000 children each year
• This year disbursements to clients expected to be more than $200 million in maintenance payments
• Each officer carries a caseload of about 600 cases
• At any time, 30 per cent of all cases are fully paid, 65 per cent are partially paid; and five per cent have never received a payment.
• Of the partially paid cases, 52 per have arrears over $3,000; 32 per cent have arrears less than $3,000; 16 per cent have arrears of less than $500.
• FMEP took 400,000 calls last year
• The program received 18 complaints and the director’s office received 127, for a total of 145 complaints during 2012-2013 when about 43,000 people were enrolled.
• At any given time as the result of child-support in arrears, FMEP directs 40,000 wage and other income attachments; 22,500 attachments on bank accounts; 21,900 interceptions of federal funds (income tax refunds and other funds); 12,700 denials of passports and other federal licences; 10,000 driver’s licence restrictions; 12,700 land registration and person property liens; and more than 60,000 notices to credit-reporting bureaus.
• Under the Themis banner, Maximus Inc. administers B.C.’s maintenance enforcement program through the Ministry of the Attorney General. Maximus is an American for-profit company that provides business services to government health agencies in Canada, the United States, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.
• Themis/Maximus provides B.C.’s program with: enrolment of orders, payment-processing, case management, communications with clients, legal services, enforcement of support payments, IT services.
• In 2012-2013, there was a total of 205 maintenance enforcement staff in three B.C. offices — in addition, 20 government staff in the director’s office providing services such as tracing payors and interprovincial and international support. The rest work directly for Themis.
• Performance benchmarks: orders are enrolled in 28 days; payments are processed within 48 hours; clients responded to within 48 hours; cases reviewed every 90 days or sooner.
• This year, the program expects to collect at least $3 million more than it collected last year.
Source: FMEP