Press Releases

Tell the Department of Work and Pensions what you think about their proposal to introduce curfew orders for non-payment of Child Maintenance
The consultation deadline is 12^th August 2022 at 11:45pm

Parents who refuse to pay child maintenance could face curfews, Ministers announced on 9^th July with detailed plans for new powers for the Child Maintenance Service. In fact, the law already gives them these powers, though it is not clear why they are now seeking to bring them into force and are consulting on the details of how these would be implemented.

That these proposals are simply wrong. Indeed, the consultation itself says that they do not expect fewer than 10 cases a year. However, they say "we believe that publicity around the introduction of this power would be an effective deterrent".  In other words, what they are saying is that they want publicity and fear to increase child maintenance payments.

Please let the Government know what you feel based on your experience by responding to their consultation questions. These are:

Question 1
Do you agree that curfew orders would be an effective method of enforcement to collect arrears and regain compliance?

Question 2
Is an accumulated time period of 2 hours a reasonable amount of time before further action is taken?

Question 3
If the curfew order is breached by 5 minutes or more, a warning letter or call will be made to the paying parent. Is this a sufficient amount of time to allow before contacting the paying parent?

Your responses may be sent by email to: cm.consultation@dwp.gov.uk by Friday 12^th August 2022 1t 11:45pm.

You can read the full details of the proposal and consultation here. Below are some of our reasons why we think this proposal is wrong-headed along with suggestions of things to think about if you have been subjected to any of the enforcement actions already being used.

The plan to introduce curfews suggests that this would be of last resort i.e. they will first:

• deduct the money from your earnings if you are employed
• take the money from your bank account or any jointly held account
• seize assets
• take your driving license
• take your passport away
• send baliffs to your house to collect any sellable possessions

One has to ask oneself, if they have not managed to find or secure any money having done all of the above, what difference will putting an ankle tag on people make to disrupt their day-to-day life and stop them leaving home? One also has to question the morality of putting even more psychological pressure on the majority of parents who are struggling financially, in the hope that a tiny proportion of avoiders might be deterred from non-payment. Where, we ask, will the money come from if all the above measures have already failed to identify any? How will creating an increased feeling of persecution and victimisation help those paying parents who do their best to support their children, but struggle to pay? It really looks like this proposal is there almost entirely for cheap publicity, with little consideration of the consequences.

All the objective data says that most paying parents with Child Maintenance arrears are on low incomes. If you have been subject to existing enforcement powers or if you have been threatened with such powers, you may wish to consider in your response:

• Were you able to afford the payments demanded of you?
• Did existing enforcement measures work on you? Were there any unintended consequences?
• Did anyone e.g. a family member have to help you with your payment(s)?
• What was the impact? Did it do more harm than good e.g. did it damage your relationship with your children or did your children from another partner suffer as a result?
• Did you become stressed because of the fear of action that might be taken or action actually taken? What was the impact on your mental health?
• How would you feel if you could not pay and had to wear an electronic tag on your ankle like a criminal?
• What might be the effect of having such a curfew on your family?
• Would you be fearful of dealing with family emergencies, knowing that CMS may decide these were not emergencies and you might go to jail?
• If you have repaid arrears, was this done with loans that you now can't service or fresh arrears being generated with ongoing maintenance payments?

ACTION 1: Respond to this consultation by 12^th August 2022.

ACTION 2: If you are affected by the issues raised here, please contact your Member of Parliament. Keep it brief and:

• Share your experience.
• Draw their attention to this consultation.
• Ask your MP to contact the relevant DWP Minister(s), urging them to reject these ill-thought-through proposals.
• Point out that there is no evidence this will have any effect, but the publicity will continue drive a false narrative about 'deadbeat dads', not least to busy MPs.
• Suggest that your MP contacts us for further information at info@fnf.org.uk.

You can find contact details for your MP here.

ACTION 3:
Please share this on social media, use hasthags #ChildMaintenance #CMS when posting your comments and tag us on Twitter using @FNF_Media

15^th July 2022

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FNF oral evidence on Child Maintenance to the House of Commons Work and Pension Committee

In May 2022 the Work and Pensions Committee launched an inquiry into Children in Poverty and Child Maintenance. FNF submitted a report in response to the Committee's call for written evidence which was published in August (see here as a pdf download or here in HTML). 

Key messages to the Committee were that Child Maintenance (CM) fails to address child poverty as barely 3% of children living in poverty are lifted out of it by CMS with very little prospect of that changing given that most parents in arrears are simply unable to afford the assessments made by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), because the formula used to calculate it does not include a basic living allowance for the paying parent. We also shared with the Committee your experiences that you shared with us in our surveys.

On the back of our submission the Committee invited us to give oral evidence alongside Save the Children, Gingerbread and One Parent Families Scotland. The Committee also heard evidence from the Centre for Social Justice. You can read the transcript of this evidence here in a pdf download or here in HTML. You can also watch these proceedings in parliament here (or by clicking on the images below). Our evidence starts at approximately 10:37.

The Committee also held an oral evidence with academics on 19^th October. This included evidence from Dr Christine Davies, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Royal Holloway University of London. Dr Davies has vast experience of analysing available data relating to CMS, the unaffordable CM assessments produced by the current scheme and the counter-productive interactions between CM and Universal Credit. Dr Davies' evidence can be found evidence is here as a pdf download and here in HTML. It can also be viewed here. The National Audit Office, were also invited to give their evidence that can be downloaded here as pdf or viewed in HTML here.

The Committee's work continues and further evidence from relevant experts seems probable before finalising their report. It seems likely that this will be the fifth authoritative report since 2019 to identify fundamental issues for affordability of Child Maintenance by a substantial portion of parents from whom it is demanded by law. FNF submitted evidence to each of these calls for evidence during this time and it has undoubtedly helped to convince each investigative body of the fundamental flaws in the system that remain unaddressed. Our evidence has of course not only highlghted the unaffordable nature of many assessments, but also the consequences of this - an increase in family conflict with disastrous consequences for the heath of paying parents and to children when such conflict sills over into disputes over child arrangements. 

'10 years after reforms designed to improve child maintenance, the Department for Work & Pensions is achieving no more for children of separated families than under the previous, discredited Child Support Agency (CSA).’  - House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

Four key reports identifying affordability issues with Child Maintenance
CSJ - The Hidden Parent Poverty Trap: Child Maintenance and Universal Credit – March 2019
SSAC Occasional Paper 22: Separated parents and the social security system – 22 October 2019
National Audit Office – Child Maintenance Report – 3 March 2022
The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has published its report on Child Maintenance - 22 June 2022

ACTION

The difficulty is that, whilst the narrative of what the issues are with CMS has significantly changed the majority of the solutions that we and all the reports identify require primary legislation. However, the Government has not shown any appetite for prioritising such legislation or to consider having an overarching strategy for separated parents, as recommended by us and the Social Security Advisory Committee. So what is needed is for you to share your experience with your MP, draw their attention to these reports and the evidence so far submitted to the Work and Pensions Committee and ask them to approach relevant ministers to prioritise legislation to create a coherent strategy for separated families and to commit to reform of Child Maintenance and other child related benefits that currently undermine the best interests of children and shared care and significantly drive damaging family conflict.

You can find contact details for your MP here.

Further Comments
Most difficulties with child maintenance stem from a ‘winner takes it all’ formula that is often unaffordable and undermines shared parenting (one parent receives child related benefits and child maintenance, irrespective of income, even if care is split fairly evenly).

The Committee of Public Accounts reported that “More than two-thirds of Paying Parents on Collect & Pay and over a quarter of those on Direct Pay say the payments are not affordable.”

Once these concerns are addressed the remaining issues will diminish as they are a consequence of the failure of existing legislation. 

There is now a public health crisis for children of separated families. There is a need for focus on effective child support mechanisms, education, Early Intervention to keep people out of court and out of CMS, integration with other departments such as Education, etc as identified in our paper ‘A Strategy for Separated Families’, Please share this with your MP too and invite them to get in touch with us to discuss these issues further.

8^th November 2022

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Welcome to the York Branch page!

We are an affiliate branch of the UK's leading shared parenting charity, Families Need Fathers.

We provide help, advice and support for those that are dealing with children's matters before, during and after relationship breakdown. All are welcome - be they mothers, fathers or grandparents.

There is no cost for attending our meetings, but if you find the help and advice useful we appreciate a small donation to FNF. We also request visitors to consider becoming members of FNF to help our organisation to keep going in especially difficult times for all.

Upcoming Meetings & Events

We meet at 7:00pm on the second Tuesday of every month.

Meeting Location

We are currently holding meetings online and you must register here to receive the link to join and attend the meeting.

To contact the branch please email Yorkshire-NW.meetings@fnf.org.uk

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