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28 October 2009
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Gingerbread is concerned that figures out today suggest more single parents are turning away from the Child Support Agency (CSA).
The figures from the Office of National Statistics show an 80,000 fall in the agency’s caseload since December 2008. Last year, the requirement for single parents on benefits to make an application to the agency was dropped. While it is right that single parents should have a choice about whether to use the agency, Gingerbread fears that the CSA’s dismal past performance is deterring parents from applying to the agency’s statutory service with the risk that they will settle for less than they need or end up doing without the money altogether.
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Gingerbread wants to see far more active promotion of the CSA’s services so that all single parents know they can still use the agency to go after the money owed to them. Today’s figures show that the agency’s performance is slowly improving with money getting through to 73% of cases where it’s due. An extra 3,400 children got the money owed to them in the last quarter.
Since November 2008 the CSA has operated as an arm of the Child maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC) and will be wound down in 2011.
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Commenting today, Gingerbread Chief Executive Fiona weir said:
“The agency is seeing a drop in applications and we’re worried that many single parents have lost faith in the statutory service and are turning their backs on the agency. Historically the CSA has not done well by parents with care of children and still owes parents £3.8 billion. But performance is slowly improving, and the CSA will be a better bet than private arrangements for some parents who cannot rely on child maintenance coming from the non-resident parent voluntarily.
“We are calling on C-MEC to focus its communications on the poorest parents to make sure they know that the CSA can help get the money that will make a difference to their families. Without this effort, we fear the poorest single parents on benefits may end up doing without the money they need to put food on the table.”
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Notes to Editors:
Gingerbread’s Briefing on today’s quarterly CSA statistics is attached to this email. The quarterly statistics were published today by the Office for National Statistics
Child maintenance is a significant reason why single parents call Gingerbread’s free Single Parent Helpline, accounting for one in ten calls to its advice service. The helpline is on 0808 802 0925.
Research in 2008 for the DWP found that 24% of single parents on benefit receiving or due to receive child maintenance or waiting for an assessment by the agency said they probably wouldn’t make any child maintenance arrangements at all in future – neither a voluntary arrangement with their children’s father nor one organised through the agency. (Wikeley N, Ireland E, Bryson C and Smith R, Relationship Separation and Child Support Study, DWP Research Report No 503, 2008.)
Case studies are available on request from the Gingerbread press office on 020 7428 5416 or 0788 1951138.
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![Child Support Agency quarterly statistics - briefing from Gingerbread [DOC, 82KB]](http://www.gingerbread.org.uk/portal/page/portal/Common/Images/word%20icon.GIF "Child Support Agency quarterly statistics - briefing from Gingerbread [DOC, 82KB]")