Child Maintenance

Thursday 13th January 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I am pleased to announce today the publication of “Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance”. This Green Paper sets out our vision to empower and enable parents to take responsibility for the welfare of their children through reform of the child maintenance system. We recognise that for families, parental separation is an emotional time. The existing system, courts and maintenance, can lead to entrenched division at a time when parents, more than ever, need to come together to put the welfare of their children first. The present system can make it difficult to come to agreements on some of the practical and important issues such as financial support for children. This reform is focused on better support for families to enable them to more easily reach their own family-based arrangements.

It can be difficult for separating families to navigate the support available to them during and after separation. There is no obvious path for families to follow especially around issues of money. We will work with other Government Departments and service providers to put in place a more integrated path.

We believe families should be supported to come to their own arrangements and feel empowered to make fully informed choices. The Green Paper sets out our proposed reform of the statutory system based on these principles and building on the reforms outlined in the Henshaw report.

The proposed reform continues the plan to introduce a new, more efficient, statutory child maintenance system, develops the ideas in the Henshaw review and the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 to charge for the services provided by the future statutory service after it is introduced and also includes implementation of a gateway to access the statutory system. The reforms recognise that the most vulnerable parents will need special support and consideration, particularly those who have suffered domestic violence.

We believe our proposals can deliver major benefits though supporting parents to come to their own family-based arrangements or for those who choose the new statutory system.

I welcome your contribution to this important piece of reform to the child maintenance system.