The number of solo parents on welfare is falling significantly.

New quarterly statistics released today show there's been a seven percent fall in the number of people receiving sole parent support payments between March 2014 and March this year.

A year ago almost 76,000 solo parents were receiving benefit payments, that figure's now just above 70,000.

It's also well down on the number of sole parent beneficiaries recorded five years ago. Then, almost 87,000 parents were receiving welfare support.