SUFFOLK: Unpaid child maintenance costs totalling �30million are owed to separated families in the county, a new report claimed today.

Figures released by the charity Gingerbread show that vast sums of money are owed to children and their families by non-resident parents.

The report showed that in West Suffolk a total of �6,388,000 of unpaid maintenance has accumulated.

In Ipswich the figure is �5,895,000, Suffolk Coastal is �5,097,000, Bury St Edmunds is �4,676,000, South Suffolk is �4,431,000 and Central Suffolk and North Ipswich is �4,410,000.

The report named Grimsby as the area owing the UK’s most maintenance costs at �11,069,000.

Gingerbread’s chief executive Fiona Weir said: “We know from single parents that child maintenance is much-needed money which pays for items such as children’s clothes, school meals, trips and activities and childcare.

“Ultimately the responsibility for paying child maintenance rests with the non-resident parent, but the Child Support Agency (CSA) has to do its job too in collecting debts and enforcing payment.

“We want to help single parents caring for children take action to ensure their arrears are paid.”

A spokesperson for the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission said: “While the Commission shares Gingerbread’s view that responsibility for unpaid maintenance rests ultimately with non-resident parents, it should be noted that CSA arrears have actually been falling recently. “In the year to March 2010, they were down from �3,783 million to �3,761m – an average reduction of �5.6m per month.

“Regrettably some parents go to great lengths to avoid their financial responsibility to their children, requiring costly and time-consuming enforcement action to be taken against them.

“But we do not give up on cases and nor do we write off accumulated arrears.”

n Parents who want to pursue child maintenance arrears can call Gingerbread’s Single Parent Helpline on 0808 802 0925.