The Director of Support Enforcement receives its authority and powers under the Support Orders Enforcement Act. The Act allows the Director to demand information from third parties; demand financial information from the debtor; and garnish wages, bank accounts and certain federal sources of money such as Employment Insurance, TAGS, and Income Tax Refunds, all without further order of the court.

On May 1, 1989 when this province introduced the Child Support Enforcement Program, it was estimated that 85% of all support orders nationwide were in default. In 1989 the provincial program had less than 1000 files and recovered slightly more than one million dollars in that year. Today the program has a caseload of over 5500 and is recovering an average of over one million dollars per month. Over half of the support orders are up to date, mostly resulting from continuous enforcement action. However approximately 30% receive only partial payments per month.

Tracking debtors is often time consuming and difficult when over one thousand non custodial parents reside outside the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but are required to make payments to the custodial parent within this Province. And with caseloads increasing by approximately 13% per year, the Child Support Enforcement Program requires an increasing number of support enforcement officers to maintain its program. Consequently, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has made increased enforcement of this program a priority. Three new staff members will be hired in order to bring increased attention to recovering support payments. This will result in a much higher success rate of enforcement.