Press Release

 

NEW CHILD MAINTENANCE BILL NEEDS TO ENCOURAGE SHARED PARENTING, NOT PUNISH PARENTS

 

• Families Need Fathers believes that new Bill published today will not improve Child Maintenance

 

• New Child Maintenance Bill does not support Shared Parenting 

 

The Child Maintenance Bill published today continues the approach set out by the Government in their White Paper on the future of child maintenance published in December 2006.

 

Commenting on the Bill Families Needs Fathers Chief Executive Jon Davies said:

 

“This Bill continues the punitive and coercive approached pioneered by the Child Support Agency. It failed for the CSA, it will fail for its successor C-MEC. What we need is a child maintenance regime that encourages both parents, after divorce or separation, to take on their full responsibilities for loving and caring for their children, as well as providing appropriate financial support: promoting a shared parenting culture, in short. This Bill needs a lot of work to deliver that.”

 

Looking at the Bill in a little more detail, it includes:

 

-          Replacing the Child Support Agency with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC), a new body at arms length from government with tougher powers to force non-resident parents to pay for their children: This will have a new management using a new IT system. Tougher powers increase the persecution of parents who are often unable to pay or whose contact with their children is either limited or non-existent.

 

-          Removing the requirement that parents with care on benefit use the CSA (or C-MEC) to establish maintenance payments, giving them more choice over their arrangements; this is a rare bright spot in the Bill.

 

-          Enforcing the surrender of a non-resident parent’s passport or imposing a curfew on them if they fail to pay maintenance; a punitive measure that does nothing to encourage parents to take a positive role in bringing up their children.

 

-          Using gross weekly income, rather than net, as a basis for calculating a maintenance liability, meaning that less reliance is placed on the non-resident parent’s co-operation, limiting opportunities for non-resident parents to manipulate income to avoid paying, and delivering a faster, more accurate and transparent maintenance calculation process. The tax system provides allowances for good reasons. This provision will produce arbitrary financial solutions.

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 Note for editors: Families Need Fathers (FNF) is a registered charity providing information and support on shared parenting issues arising from family breakdown, and support to divorced and separated parents, irrespective of gender or marital status. Our primary concern is the maintenance of the child’s relationship with both parents. Founded in 1975, FNF helps thousands of parents every year.

 

 

 

Please see Families Need Fathers Manifesto

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