Services provided by medical laboratories

Tender description

A fundamental principle of the Child Maintenance Group (CMG) is to provide services that support separated families by assisting with the payment of maintenance between parents for their children. The Department uses DNA matching to confirm parentage where this has been questioned. During the lifecycle of a Child Maintenance application a Non Resident Parent / Paying Parent can dispute that they are the parent of a child named on an application and can choose to proceed with a DNA test through CMG’s accredited testing provider or to arrange their own private DNA test with a Ministry of Justice accredited testing provider. Results from DNA testing enable CMG to confirm parentage and progress maintenance applications, securing payments for children from separated families. Approximately 40% of the contract is paid by CMG with the remaining 60% paid by the customer at the point of access. To carryout DNA testing on behalf of DWP to allow the department to use DNA matching to identify and confirm parentage where this has been questioned. The estimated volumes of referrals for DNA testing for the 2012 Scheme are 200 cases per month, 2,400 cases per year (approximately 7200 tests). The estimated volumes for the 1993/2003 Scheme is 5 cases per month, 60 cases per year (approximately 180 tests).