Child Maintenance Service

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I was going to say, “You have become young, Mr Bone”, but we have someone else in the Chair. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for securing this important debate. Like those of many Members, my office is being inundated with child maintenance cases at the moment.

The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) gave a detailed speech that focused on avoidance by self-employed non-resident parents and used her experience as a single mum. I think we all agree with her that lone parents are being let down by the system. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) stated that it is clear that more cases go wrong than right, and he also mentioned that the Child Maintenance Service seems to pursue those who pay and not those who do not, which is a ludicrous situation. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) stated that there must be justice and equity and ongoing maintenance for parents, with the redress they need. He hopes that the Minister will focus on the areas of concern and that there will be a review of the whole system before it is too late for other parents.

There appear to be problems not only with the system itself, but with its operation, and I will begin by speaking about policy and then highlight some constituent cases. It is clear from the many cases mentioned by hon. Members today that we are all suffering the same; but the parents are suffering even more, so we need to sort this out.

I will give the Minister an overview of what I see are the problems that need to be addressed. Simply put, it is not only unreasonable to charge single parents to access their right to support, it is utterly deplorable. As we have heard, some of those parents are survivors of domestic abuse, and the Government have not even attempted to make exemptions for them. The system has a real potential to create further distress and it is my position and that of my party that the Government need immediately to remove that obstacle for single parents, to protect all children from poverty, regardless of their family situation.

We need only look at the statistics to understand the logic in our argument. Children who live in single-parent families are almost twice as likely to be at risk of poverty compared with children in coupled families. Brutal cuts because of Tory austerity, combined with the rise in living costs, mean that child maintenance matters even more in protecting children from poverty. With no end in sight to the harsh ideological austerity agenda, and with living costs looking set to rise further due to Brexit, the situation looks set to worsen still. If the UK Government are not prepared to take measures such as scrapping child maintenance charges, they cannot claim to be serious in the slightest about dealing with child poverty.

Let us contrast that with the situation north of the border. The Scottish Government continue to prioritise the rights of children. Scottish National party Ministers are introducing a child poverty Bill that will enshrine in legislation targets to reduce child poverty. While we strive ambitiously forward, I hope that Westminster will not work against us. The Scottish Government do not have powers over the child maintenance service, so my colleagues and I urge the UK Government to follow the SNP’s lead. If they are not prepared to do so, then please, Minister, give us powers over the service and we will do something about it. Vulnerable families and the rights of the child must be protected. The Government cannot shy from their responsibilities; they must take urgent action to address the ongoing problems with the service that we have heard about today.

I agree with what everyone has said about Gingerbread. I support its Maintenance Matters campaign, and believe that the Government should immediately scrap the £20 application fee for single parents on low incomes, get rid of the 4% collection charge and make better provision to protect domestic abuse survivors. The charges are grossly unfair to the collecting parent and, in essence, punish them for the other parent’s non-compliance. The charges also create a barrier to accessing the statutory service for those on low incomes, who are arguably those most in need of support. The Department for Work and Pensions’ own evaluation research has shown that about half of those on direct pay and two fifths of receiving parents with a case closing are on very low incomes. Now, 4% may not sound much, but for someone on a low income it really matters. Ministers should be concerned that a quarter of receiving parents who have moved from a direct pay to a collect and pay arrangement say that losing 4% of their maintenance is difficult to afford.

There seem to be major issues with the internal operations of the service too. Recently, my office has seen a huge spike in the number of cases, and, as we have heard today, so have those of many hon. Members. My constituents are turning to me for help because they just do not know who to turn to. Naturally, I am only too happy to help, but I am dismayed that they are having a difficult and frustrating time dealing with the agency directly. A huge part of the problem is that when they call, they are speaking to a different adviser every time who could be in any of the different call centres in different locations across the UK. We are repeatedly told that people receive conflicting information and advice depending on who they speak to.

The service my office has been receiving has declined. On two occasions, I have had to escalate cases out of sheer frustration. It would be expected that my staff would receive the appropriate level of service by ringing the MP hotline, but that has not been the case. We are also not given responses by email—we get them only by letter. That slows the entire process down. Why can we not be given summary responses, confirming what has just been discussed and disclosed by telephone?

I have one constituent case that has gone on for about 18 months. Louise came to me as she felt her ex was hiding money from the CMS, and she could not get it to look into things further. After we got involved, it agreed to escalate the case to the financial investigations unit. Initially she was advised that the timescale might be six months. Then it went to a year, and so on. Parents and MPs’ offices understand that the work is sensitive and secretive, but many parents are just left feeling that nothing is happening. Meanwhile, they are left to struggle on, still not receiving a maintenance payment. Regular contact from the caseworker is essential, even if it is only to say, “No update.” Ultimately, people want to know that they have not been forgotten. The service I received in Louise’s case was appalling. My office must have called about 20 times for an update and never received a call back until we escalated it to a senior level.

Two separate constituents have intimated that the CMS has tried to push the collect and pay method when both parents have been happy with direct pay. Are advisers being instructed to do that so that the Department can make money from collection fees?

Another constituent, John, came to me after receiving a letter about arrears on his account. The arrears were extortionate, as were the proposed monthly payments. Once I got involved, my office asked for a full breakdown of the account, as John disputed the arrears. We received the wrong information from the CMS in a telephone call and were told the arrears were approximately £700. My caseworker called the constituent to tell him and within five minutes of hanging up the phone, we received a further call from the CMS with a correction that added thousands of pounds to the figure. Understandably, I was angered by that and asked for a full written breakdown. That took approximately six weeks to arrive. The case is still ongoing, moving at a glacial pace due to the Child Maintenance Service. Does that sound like an efficiently run service?

It is clear that the system is broken. I think the rise we are seeing in the number of cases is only the tip of the iceberg. When my office and my constituents do not get the service they should, it has a major impact on everyone, especially the children. The Minister simply must act to protect them and to stop the suffering of my and other Members’ constituents.