Child Maintenance: Choice for all parents starts today
27 October 2008
More money for low income single parents as compulsion to use CSA ends.
Significant changes to Britain's child maintenance system come into effect from today. They extend choice to more parents and deliver more money to low income families.
All parents with day-to-day care of children are now free to choose the child maintenance arrangements which best suit their own circumstances. Previously, those claiming benefits - currently around 400,000 - have been required to use the statutory service provided by the Child Support Agency (CSA).
The change coincides with the doubling from £10 to £20 per week of the amount parents with day-to-day care can keep before their benefit entitlement is affected. It paves the way for a full 'disregard' in 2010 when all connection between the benefits system and child maintenance will end.
The introduction of the full maintenance disregard in April 2010, combined with existing child maintenance reforms, will help lift a further 100,000 children out of poverty.
A new, impartial, information and support service, Child Maintenance Options will help parents to understand the options for arranging child maintenance and to decide for themselves the arrangements that best suit their circumstances.
The reforms mark the first steps taken towards an entirely new maintenance system by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. As well as providing information and support to parents, the Commission has a broad remit to promote the financial responsibility parents have for their children and deliver an efficient statutory maintenance service with effective enforcement.
Janet Paraskeva, Chair of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission said:
We need to put the interests of children first and disconnecting maintenance payments from the benefits system is an important step forward. From now on, parents who are able to make private arrangements will no longer be compelled to use the CSA.
But whenever parents are unable to agree their own arrangements, or if those arrangements break down, the statutory service will still be available. Over the past three years, the efficiency of that service has improved significantly.
The Commission will have increased powers to take firm and effective enforcement action against those parents who fail to meet their responsibilities to their children. From 2009/10, to enable swifter enforcement the Commission will have the power to issue a liability order without the need to apply to the courts. Additional measures, also due to be introduced in 2009/2010, include the power to deduct child maintenance debt directly from bank accounts; apply to the courts for travel disqualificion and curfews; and recover debt from the estate of a deceased non-resident parent.
Improvements in the CSA's performance in recent years provide the Commission with a stable foundation on which to build. In February 2006, an Operational Improvement Plan (OIP) was introduced for the Agency, and latest figures show that 768,000 children are now benefiting from over £1billion in maintenance payments - an extra 65,000 compared to the previous year and an increase of 207,000 since March 2005, before the OIP was launched.
The CSA will continue to operate the two current statutory maintenance schemes. From 2011, the Commission will introduce a new statutory maintenance scheme; maintenance calculations will be based on the gross, rather than net, income of the parent without day to day care.