Date: 12 December 2011
Author: Elisabeth Sneade

The Government has published proposals to improve the child maintenance system, but will it make a difference? Proposals include:

• Increasing the ‘flat rate’ of £7 per week paid by parents receiving benefits
• Basing payments on the non-resident parent’s latest tax-year gross income
• Reviewing maintenance annually
• Using tax date to reduce application times
• Using online systems to enable parents to make payments, view details of their case (e.g. payments made) and to track the progress of an application
• Parents who share the care of their children exactly equally will no longer be required to pay maintenance.

This all sounds positive in theory but for most parents, if you disclose the information required the assessment tends to be straightforward. Where the system needs to be strengthened and made clearer is in relation to parents who refuse to pay, or under pay the amount assessed. This was highlighted by the case of Jamie Foreman, the Eastenders actor, ordered to pay child maintenance after a court heard he owed £47,000. Although the Magistrates have made a liability order to allow the Child Support Agency (CSA) to recover the money, it is paid voluntarily and it will be many more months before the CSA can ‘enforce’ payment. This part of the system needs to be sped up and strengthened so that non-resident parents can no longer avoid their responsibilities.

The other glaring issue to come from the suggested changes is bound to be the strategic manoeuvre for equal shared care between the parents so that the non-resident parent is absolved of their responsibility to pay maintenance for their child. Whilst equal shared care can work when the parents both live locally, what about those children who live with mum and whose father lives further away.