Campaigning victory on child maintenance

Gingerbread has been in the forefront of making the argument to ministers, MPs and officials in the Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions that parents on benefit should be able to keep the whole of any child maintenance they are paid for their children – just as happens for parents on Working Tax Credit.

Finally the Government has agreed: it has announced that, from April 2010, it intends to allow a full child maintenance disregard for all parents with care on benefit.

Hopefully, the new measure will not only mean more money for children in hard-up families, but far less administrative hassle for single parents, who at present face having to have their Income Support altered each week the maintenance they get exceeds the current limit (£20 for all parents with care from 27th October).

Are you claiming benefit? What choice have you made about child maintenance?

If you are claiming Income Support or income-related Jobseeker’s Allowance, we would be interested in hearing from you what you have decided to do about child maintenance. Are you sticking with the CSA? Making your own agreement with your child’s other parent? Or choosing not to seek maintenance? And what were the reasons which have led to your current choice?

Please email us at policy@gingerbread.org.uk or write to us at the Policy Department at Gingerbread, 255 Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2LX.


Formed from the merger of the National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread.	Search:
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