Amyas Morse said the "level of error in maintenance assessments" made it impossible to give full sign off to the commission’s accounts for 2008/9 and 2009/10.
He found that some payments were based on incorrect assessments and others were paid to families at the wrong rate. His estimate is that for 2008/9 there were £13.5m worth of overpayments and £15.5m worth of underpayments and for 2009/10 £10m was overpaid while there was £14.4m worth of underpayments. It is also believed that as of March last year the amount of child maintenance arrears was £3.69bn.
Morse said that the financial errors and arrears were inherited from the Child Support Agency, which the commission replaced in 2008.
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