FNF Newsletter 29th March 2019

Hello Visitor,

Welcome to the second issue in March.

In this issue:

As always, Thank you for your continued support.

With best wishes

Jerry Karlin

Chair and Managing Trustee

Do You Want to Influence Child Maintenance Policy?

Have your say by attending a Focus Group
Westminster 24th April 2019 6 pm to 7.30 pm

A government agency has commissioned research into living standards and well-being of separated parents, with respect to child maintenance and the benefits system. The study will focus particularly on parents who pay Child Maintenance.

Whist the work will focus on the issues around benefits, including Universal Credit, it will consider other matters that affect paying parents.

Examples of issues that you may be able to assist with:

• Unaffordable assessments for Child Maintenance
• 20% ‘collect’ system surcharge
• Issues with variations of pay e.g. if self-employed
• Work that does not pay
• Shared parenting not taken into account fairly
• Housing cost issues
• Second family costs
• Travel cost issues
• Assessments that don’t reflect court orders or promote breaking them
• Overturned court agreed maintenance
• etc

The research has been commissioned by the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC). They are a statutory body that makes independent recommendations to the government on complex regulations, so this is an opportunity for your voice to be heard.

Please email admin@fnf.org.uk with ‘Child Maintenance’ in the subject heading if you are able and willing to attend this with an outline of your situation and we will confirm details in a couple of weeks’ time.

Think-tank Identifies the ‘Hidden Parent Poverty Trap’ of Child Maintenance

Think-tank Identifies the ‘Hidden Parent Poverty Trap’ of Child Maintenance

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) have completed their report into Child Maintenance (CM) under the title 'THE HIDDEN POVERTY TRAP: Child Maintenance and Universal Credit'.

The report identifies many of the issues that we have been campaigning on. Their findings are essentially same as ours - that some of the poorest people are being asked to pay money they do not have and for whom work does not pay.

Their recommendations are:
1. That Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) urgently review the number of people affected if Universal Credit (UC) is rolled out.
2. To avoid the politically sensitive issue of reducing CM to receiving parents, they suggest a complete reform of Child Maintenance on the Australian/Norwegian/US Income Shares Model that takes into account both parent's incomes and cost of living allowances.
3. That UC calculations should include Child Maintenance.

Whist the focus of this work was the interaction of UC and CM, the issues exist under the existing 'legacy' benefits.

The recommended Income Shares Model is at odds with the idea of simplicity of child support and we may wish to thinks further about better ways. If shared care was the norm then it would not matter so much.

Meanwhile, please bring this work to the attention of your MP and ask others to do the same, especially if affected by the 'poverty trap' of the current system. Please ask your MP to raise your experiences with the minister, perhaps suggesting some or all of the points we are calling on the government to do:

1. immediately stop surcharging the poorest and most vulnerable parents who are on state benefits
2. urgently update Chile Maintenance payment thresholds for cost-of-living increases since 1998
3. adjust Universal Credit to take into account Child Maintenance, in-line with CSJ recommendations
4. carry out a wholesale review of Child Maintenance to meet the needs of modern-day families with a particular emphasis on promoting and not undermining shared parenting.

Obviously, the formula is very flawed beyond that, in undermining shared parenting and promoting conflict. However, the affordability issue is the primary one addressed by this report.