Centralised Attachment of earnings Payment (CAPS)

Centralised Attachment of earnings Payment System (CAPS), was introduced in 1996. Before CAPS, each local county court would produce its own attachment of earnings orders and deal with payments made under the order. The local court was also responsible for enforcement of the order, but as this was not computer-supported, this was impractical and enforcement was only instigated following individual requests from claimants. Following development of the CAPS computer system at Northampton, courts converted their existing orders to become payable at Northampton, plus all new orders were sent here for production.  Please note that CAPS does not currently accept payments for Magistrates Court Orders.  Please see the court named on the order for these payments.

CAPS is easily able to monitor for payment, process payments and, where enforcement is required, will refer orders back to the local court. CAPS therefore provides savings to Her Majesty's Courts Service, provides a streamlined effective form of enforcement to claimants, and also provides one payment point for employers. CAPS has always met our self-imposed target of receipting all payments on the day of receipt. We decided that this was our biggest customer service aim, as this would then ensure that any payments under a maintenance order would then be paid out at the earliest opportunity (the following working day). Payments under a judgment order are paid out weekly.

We have further developed CAPS to provide the option to employers to pay by BACS and have worked with our bankers, Paymaster, to make our handling of BACS transactions more streamlined. We use a modem link to view our bank account and can see transactions ahead of receiving the paper reports, which enables us to prepare the work in advance.