We have written to Rt Hon Theresa May, Minister for Women and Equalities, to highlight the harm that the proposals to charge for access to child maintenance services will do. It's supported by a range of charities, and you can read some of the reaction in this guardian article from April 6.
Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Minister for Women and Equalities
Ninth Floor, Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU
4th April 2011
Dear Minister (and Home Secretary)
Government proposals on child maintenance: impact on women
We write to draw your attention to the unfair impact we feel that the government proposals for the future of child maintenance will have on women raising children alone and would ask that in your capacity as Minister for Women and Equalities you request that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions reconsider his proposals to impose financial charges on those who need to use the statutory maintenance service as the only means of obtaining maintenance for their children.
The Government’s proposals are contained in its consultation paper “Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance.” The consultation ends on 7th April. The Welfare Reform Bill currently before Parliament incorporates some of those proposals.
Ninety-seven per cent of parents with care who are eligible to receive child maintenance are women. It is our view that the proposed procedural and financial hurdles to be introduced from 2012 for all applicants to the statutory maintenance system will unfairly impact on them, rather than on non-resident parents (mostly fathers) who have failed to meet their responsibilities to their children. Below we explain why.
The Government’s proposals to charge all parents with care £100 to access the statutory maintenance system, plus up to 12% of any money received via the collection service , will put (and are expressly intended to put) pressure on them to settle for private arrangements instead. Yet no equivalent direct pressure from the Commission will be placed on non-resident parents (mostly fathers) to enter into a private agreement - until the parent with care has paid a £100 application fee to enter the statutory system.
The government says it wants parents living apart to make “family-based arrangements” regarding child maintenance on the basis that families themselves are best placed to determine what arrangements will work best for them. We think the government underestimates the extent to which, when parents separate, there can be difficult and painful circumstances and very different interests when it comes to working out the financial contribution of one party to the other for the maintenance of children. The charging proposals in particular undermine the negotiating position of parents with care on a low income in need of child maintenance. A non-resident parent can offer less than the statutory rate of child maintenance, knowing that the parent with care will not only have to pay an application fee to enter the statutory system, but will then lose up to 12 per cent of any child maintenance paid, if the collection service is necessary because he is an unreliable payer.
Whereas the parent with care will have to pay an application fee to get the statutory child maintenance service involved, the non-resident parent can escape all charges if, once contacted by the Commission with the statutory amount he has to pay, he opts to make payment direct to the parent with care rather than have the money collected by the Commission. The charging regime thus impacts unfairly on parents with care, mostly women.
Moreover, whereas the non-resident parent has a choice whether to pay via the statutory collection service or pay directly to the parent with care, clause 129 in the Welfare Reform Bill will have the effect that the parent with care herself will only be allowed to use the collection service if either the non-resident parent consents to this, or she can convince the Commission that the child maintenance due will not be paid in full. The different rules governing access to the collection service make it more difficult for parents with care than for non-resident parents to opt for this service,
The equality impact assessment prepared by the government which accompanies the consultation document admits that a parent with care could lose out on a period of child maintenance (“a small cost”), if she is only able to persuade the Commission through a process of experiencing non-payment, that the non-resident is an unreliable payer and the collection service is necessary. It is wrong that parents with care should have to face any period of financial loss in order to gain access to the collection service.
Once the non-resident parent has chosen to make direct payments to the parent with care, the proposed new system will put added pressure on the parent with care go along with reduced or irregular payments. She will know that if she asks to use the collection service at this stage, not only will she lose up to 12% of the child maintenance due, but the non-resident parent might well be antagonised by having to pay 20% more. There is often an inequality of power in this situation, which can make a parent with care very vulnerable to pressure.
The consultation paper proposes that “victims of domestic violence” will be exempt from the application charge to use the statutory maintenance scheme, but makes no mention of automatically allowing them to use the collection service to avoid direct contact with the perpetrator. This could mean that the perpetrator could insist on making direct payments thus exposing the parent with care to a risk of further abuse. Where victims do manage to persuade the Commission to allow them to use the collection service as a buffer in collecting child maintenance due, under the proposals they will be financially penalised as a result ,with their children losing up to 12% of the maintenance paid.
A quarter of parents with care using the Child Support Agency (24%) say their break-up was due to the other parent being violent towards them, and in 4% of cases they said the separation was due to the ex-partner being violent to a child or children. No information has been given by the government as to the circumstances when the ‘domestic violence’ application fee exemption will apply, or what parents with care will have to prove to qualify. Nor has any definition of what is meant by ‘domestic violence’ been given.
We are concerned that the government’s proposals will impact harshly and unfairly on parents – mostly mothers - raising children alone who are unable to make their own private arrangements with the other parent – mostly fathers.
There is a strong risk that, as a result of the government’s plans, a considerable number of women, particularly if on a low income, or where the amount of child maintenance due is modest, will simply give up on child maintenance altogether or accept inadequate and irregular sums of child maintenance from the other parent, because they feel there is no alternative. Those who have use the statutory system because of the other parent’s failure to meet his responsibilities, will be financially penalised. The result will be greater poverty among an already vulnerable group of families and their children.
We therefore urge you to intervene to stop this unfair penalisation of women and their children.
