Child Maintenance Service

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows]

The hon. Gentleman is right; I am not going to concentrate on that. Family-based arrangements are what everyone wants, but they do not happen in all cases. I am here to support and talk about those who are outwith that scheme.

The support that the CMS gives is not optional; it is a legal right for children. The Child Maintenance Service is failing to secure children and their parents with care their rights, or it is taxing them to gain access to what is theirs. Maintenance payments have had both a current and historical problem with underpayment, people not paying and arrears. To date, the outstanding arrears for child maintenance stand at an astonishing £4 billion. That figure alone shows the extent to which the Child Support Agency and the Child Maintenance Service are failing people. At this point, I should add my thanks to the charity Gingerbread, because I am drawing heavily on its work in its recent report. It is likely that that figure does not represent the full picture, as paying parents under direct pay are assumed to have paid their maintenance in full unless the CMS is told otherwise.

According to Gingerbread, which has been doing fantastic work to raise this issue and support families, during the transfer process from CSA to CMS many parents have been pressured into not transferring their historical arrears over to their new claim. The Department for Work and Pensions calls that a fresh start. However, no equivalent letter is sent to paying parents to encourage them to pay off their arrears. In 2013, the UK Government issued “Preparing for the future, tackling the past”, in which they outlined their strategy of disregarding past debts and instead focusing on the payment of current maintenance. In line with that strategy, between December 2015 and March 2016, debt collections per case dropped from £35 to £22.

The DWP has calculated that as little as 12% of CSA debts on both the CSA and CMS systems will actually be collected. Current arrangements are allowing parents to renege on their responsibilities. Even though these debts were accrued in the past, parents should still be held responsible now. Collecting historical arrears should not mean a trade-off with current arrears; both are a priority.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I agree very much with what the hon. Lady is saying. I want to mention one of my constituents, who first approached me in September 1999 and the father of whose child has steadfastly refused to contribute anything. He has spent a great deal on lawyers in the intervening almost 20 years to avoid paying maintenance. Today he owes £55,000, of which £15,000 is owed to my constituent. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is absolutely vital that the money is collected and that the parent receives what is owed to them?

[Marion Fellows]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely valid point. That is exactly what I am trying to argue. We should chase arrears; not to do so seems to fly in the face of common sense and natural justice.

Members of the public, and indeed Members of this House, may not be aware that during the switch from CSA to CMS case history is not transferred, leading to a loss in accumulated knowledge that wastes resources and could allow a non-resident parent another chance to renege on their payments. Despite waiting years for an effective service that will proactively seek to collect owed maintenance, these parents with care and their children are being forgotten, with no option for recourse. If debts are uncollectable or unlikely to be collected, parents must be made aware of that. Additionally, if the UK Government are unwilling or unable to take the steps to secure children their rights, they must compensate receiving parents for their failings.

Although the CMS is taking the approach of focusing on current maintenance, it is also failing in that regard. Most arrears were accumulated under the CSA. However, since the launch of the CMS in 2012, nearly half of paying parents have been allowed to accrue arrears. As I have said, those in direct pay are assumed to have paid the full maintenance. Given that 70% of CMS cases come under direct pay, compared with just 33% of CSA cases, the magnitude of the problem under CMS is likely to be far larger than the numbers show.

Just because parents agree to pay, it does not mean they will fulfil their obligations. Under the CSA, between January and March 2016, one quarter of paying parents did not pay the full amount due. Of that number, two thirds paid less than half or nothing at all, which demonstrates that the priority of focusing on the payment of current maintenance is not being met. This Government’s strategy is failing.

Stringent criteria must be fulfilled before CSA debts will even be considered for collection under the Child Maintenance Service: a parent must open a CMS case, and CSA arrears payments must have been received in the last quarter before moving to the Child Maintenance Service, or the parent must explicitly ask for those arrears to be collected.

The Child Maintenance Service process is extremely difficult to understand and is often not communicated properly to parents. For example, DWP figures show that 17% of those using direct pay whose payments stopped or never even started were not aware that the CMS could even pursue payments for them. Similarly, 15% did not even know about the collect and pay service. Shockingly, a recent report from PayPlan found that more than half of single parents did not even know their child was eligible for support from their absent parent. Communication with parents about services available to them and their rights is lacking; they need to be informed.

The CMS needs not only to take action to collect historical arrears, but to make parents aware of their rights and of what the CMS can do to assist them. A variation claim—the main tool for receiving parents to ensure that their ex-partners’ proper income is taken into account—is kept secret. The cynic in me believes that that information is intentionally withheld to reduce the likelihood of any sort of action being taken.

Taking simple measures such as providing written breakdowns of arrears, how they were accrued and what options are available to people would go a long way towards improving parents’ interaction with the service and awareness of their rights.