Use of Video-conferencing Facilities for Enforcement of Maintenance Orders Applications

2 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) in the past three years, how many applications for the enforcement of maintenance orders have been made using video-conferencing facilities at the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations and the Tampines Family Service Centre; and (b) how does this compare to the overall number of applications.

Mr Tan Chuan-Jin: From 2014 to 2016, 23 to 26 applications for the enforcement of maintenance orders were filed annually through video-conferencing at the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations’ Maintenance Support Central (SCWO-MSC), Tampines Family Service Centre (FSC) and at HELP FSC¹, one of the Divorce Support Specialist Agencies, as shown in Table 1 below.

The cases comprised around 1% of the total number of enforcement applications annually from 2014 to 2016, which was around 2,600 to 3,000.

The Ministry has been working closely with the Family Justice Courts (FJC) to simplify and increase accessibility of the enforcement process. Apart from video-conferencing and assistance with applications, SCWO-MSC and HELP FSC provide a more comprehensive suite of services to parties seeking enforcement of maintenance, including credit bureau reporting and counselling. The Ministry will continue to work with the FJC and the service centres to raise awareness of the services provided at the centres.