How CMS is failing our children – Issue 1 – The reality for single parents
During the pandemic we set up a Campaign Group that tackles the issues surrounding being a single parent, and champion single parent voices. One of the first subjects that was addressed was the Child Maintenance Service. This is an issue that is discussed and brought up over and over again by our SPW members in Wales. Therefore, we decided to create some research around the impact of CMS, for single parents in Wales, and see if there are any common themes between single parents' experiences around CMS. We are showing the results in a series of 3 blogs and invite more single parents to get involved and complete the survey.
The survey is paramount as while doing our research we found that there were no statistics around the CMS and single parents conducted in Wales. This data we have started to collect and continue to collect could make a difference so if you haven't already completed the survey please do so! Also have your say, join our campaigning team.
The current overview of Child Maintenance as stated by the UK Government is:
“Child maintenance is an arrangement between you and the other parent of your child. It covers how your child’s living costs will be paid for when one of the parents no longer lives with them. It’s made when you’ve separated from the other parent (or if you’ve never been in a relationship).
Both parents are responsible for the costs of raising their children, even if they do not see them. Making agreements about access to your children happens separately.
Child maintenance can be either:
a private arrangement between you and the other parent
made through the Child Maintenance Service - a government scheme.”
This statement alone is incredibly significant. Maintenance covers your child’s “living costs” – meaning what it costs to cover your child’s basic and essential financial needs. Not extra costs, not support costs, not extracurricular costs. Food, clothing and housing costs. The things that without, your child would be significantly more likely to end up in poverty.
Huge Outstanding Debts, Loop Holes and Fudged Stats
In December 2012, the Child Support Agency was taken over by the Child Maintenance Service as part of child maintenance reform. However, £2.5 billion still remains outstanding to qualifying parents, which equates to around 970,000 outstanding cases. Only 22% of parents paid up to 90% of their child maintenance (up o Dec 2020) through CMS.
The Department of Work and Pensions has estimated that more than half of this debt will simply be written off. What has not been well publicised is the fact that the resident parent needs to be the one to refuse for this to happen. It is a way for the DWP to reduce the amount of arrears that they see limited success in retrieving. It is another way for non-resident parents to get away with not paying for their children in the hope that the resident parent doesn’t get the letter back in time or it doesn’t get returned to the correct department in time.
There are so many countless ways that the Child Maintenance Service is simply not fit for purpose. It no longer seems to be there to provide for children and put their needs first and foremost. Now it just seems to be there to make a profit and churn out endless meaningless and quite frankly, ‘fudged statistics’. They are painting themselves as a highly effective service with all the statements and figures that suggest they are a company that is putting children first.
However, the quotes that have been received to help write this blog, suggest they are not paying anywhere near enough attention to the facts and figures that should be top of the agenda every single week. If you dig deep enough you will find some more significant data.
10,300 domestic abuse CMS cases were recorded from Oct- Dec 2020
71,100 cases were recorded as “no ongoing maintenance due” for Oct- Dec 2020. However, on the National Table of CMS Statistics up to Dec 2020 this data has been removed
The cumulative figure at the end of Oct- Dec 2020 for the child maintenance that should’ve been paid is £4,327,600*
Along with 100,200 cases where “some Child Maintenance was paid”
The DWP statistics do not represent the reality of what is happening day to day on the ground in the real life of parents.
“As someone who has had personal dealings with the Child Support Agency and now the Child Maintenance Service for nearly 20 years it is quite clear where the Child Maintenance Service has placed some of its top priorities. Charging for their service is just one of them.”
“I am owed over £13,000 in arrears, I was given a payment last week of £2.10. The first one I had received in months. Due to this payment my ex is now classed as ‘some Child Maintenance was paid’. I will have to wait months for another payment, and this is likely to only be another huge amount but is enough for CMS not to chase!”
“I put a claim into CMS in Feb of 2017. At this point my ex was on benefits so was entitled to £3 a week this went on until 2018. Constant phone calls and not 1 payment. In 2018 my ex got a job. I was awarded £20 a week. No payments and then a deduction of earnings was finally awarded Jan of 2019, I had 3 payments and then they managed to get off deduction of earnings. No payments from April of 2019 until march 2020. Only because I kept phoning every week is they are now back on deduction of earnings and pays £108.10 per month with over £2000 of arrears that my son will never see. The system is so broken. The debt will grow and grow and finally be written off”
Another parent backs this up with another example of a similar nature…
“I don’t even know where to begin with it! They’re staggeringly incompetent. My ex is currently on probably their fifth holiday abroad this year and owes a backlog of at least £5k which I will never see. The main problem seems to be CMS have difficulty seeing if somebody is working and what their salary is. I can’t understand why this is if they’re linked with the DWP. My ex did have a job last year and it took CMS months to get the info from his employer and deduct money from his salary. I think they managed two payments before they left the job. This year CMS wrote me a letter saying they were writing off the backlog as my ex hadn’t worked since 2017. It took a few letters from me (basically reminding them to check their records from last year) before CMS remembered they had worked and now they owe me £5k imaginary money again. It shouldn’t take me handwriting letters in biro for a government body to find out that my ex had a tax paying job!”
“My ex has worked out that if you regularly change jobs, you will never pay. CMS use data from HMRC to work out what is owed and then CMS seem to give the non-resident parent a month’s grace to pay (which of course they don’t), then another two months to reinstate the attachment of earnings order, by which time they’ve moved on again. My arrears are now £13,000. This is crazy and this debt will only grow… This debt is not taken seriously by those in power, and I really feel for the parents who are in a far more precarious financial position than I am. Lots to be said about this.”
“My ex opened a second pension as the CMS deduct pension contributions before calculating the amount due. It’s insulting that they are allowed to feather their own nest before paying for their child.”
“They don’t keep receiving parents informed or advise you of what “rules” they have to follow e.g ex has been on a DOE - after a certain amount of time CMS must offer the paying parent the opportunity to go onto collect and pay via direct debit… As receiving parents, we are told not to rely on maintenance, however if that was said to anyone about a benefit claim there would be uproar. They don’t follow their own guidance, e.g. they are meant to start the process of DOE after a specified number of letters and phone calls have gone unanswered by the paying parent. They only actioned it in my case when I kept ringing and challenging them. During the first lockdown they stopped taking calls from receiving parents - the phone line advised this with a recorded message and if you did manage to get through to a person, they point blank refused to speak to you and told you to send a message on the portal - which they only ever answer with standard generated letters. It’s entirely unacceptable that the CMS treats children in this way. The priority for any system should be that the child is supported. There are too many loopholes and measures that make it possible for paying parents to shirk their responsibilities and to carry out financial abuse. Ultimately, withholding money or preventing access to money is recognised as a form of abuse under the law and CMS policies and procedures allow this to happen to receiving parents.”
The evidence is clear, yet nothing is changing. 1 in 3 children are in poverty in Wales (JRF), yet a Government funded organisation like CMS is failing them.
“1 in 3 are single parents in Wales. Being a single parent in itself poses incredible challenges, without having to be the only financial provider for your children.
It is stated (UNCRC) under Article 18 ‘Both parents share responsibility for bringing up their child and should always consider what is best for the child. Governments must support parents by creating support services for children and giving parents the help they need to raise their children’ Not financially providing for a child is not sharing responsibility and the Child Maintenance Service is playing an active role in this failure; a department within government which is supposed to be there to support parents and meet the criteria in the UNCRC. In Wales, we have the Wellbeing and Future Generation Act which emphasises 7 wellbeing goals. Without ensuring changes are made to the the CMS process, 5 or those wellbeing goals can not be met.
This needs to be challenged and investigated and changes need to be made to ensure our children are able live healthy lives. We are gathering information from single parents daily to build this evidence base and lobby for change. Please join us. You’re not alone in your challenge.”
Keep an eye out for the second issue of ‘How the CMS is failing our children to gain a broader insight and see how you can help us.
If you are a single parent in Wales we want to hear your view point on the CMS system. We want to hear from both resident and non resident parents. COMPLETE THE SURVEY HERE.
If you are a single parent in England then you can complete a survey by The National Audit Office (NAO), who are investigating whether the CMS is delivering value for money HERE
*Source Child Maintenance management information collated in, National table for CMS statistics data Dec 2020.