How The CMS Is Failing Our Children – Issue 3 – Our Final Thoughts
On 24 June, Lord Farmer led a Question for Short Debate in the House of Lords: "to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reform the Child Maintenance Service". It is hopefully going to initiate change in the failing CMS system.
You can rewatch the debate live HERE.
“The payment of child support (‘child maintenance’) following divorce or separation is a vital part of ensuring both parents fulfil responsibilities to their children, even if they no longer live (or have ever lived) under the same roof.”
Having spent a long time reading, researching and pondering about the approach to this blog we will admit it has been edited and added to over a number of months. It has been made clear to us that there is a lot of confusion over the CMS but also a lot of ill-feeling.
Lots of people have given up the fight. Lots of people don’t think it will change, as it has become a very large organisation that people should be able to access – but don’t because of the loopholes and the sensitivity of the subject matter.
Talking about money, poverty and ex-relationships is still a taboo subject for many people, especially when you combine the all three.
Talking with an ex-partner about financially providing for your child should be a topic that is talked about more and agreements should be easier to maintain. Instead, it seems as though it has become such an emotive subject that people tend to walk away from having anything at all. Then, when it comes to talking to a call handler about these potentially emotive subjects, we suspect there is even more reason to walk away.
Another point, highlighted in our research and blogs, that is largely unknown to most, is that some paying parents have managed to get out of paying, or they pay the absolute minimum. There are many loopholes which the CMS have created which means that they aren’t able to manage their systems effectively to ensure paying parents are contributing to their children’s upbringing.
In this quote from a single parent you can see how the paying parent manages to pay the minimum or even nil in this case:
“What can I say, it’s hard to know where to start. I’ve had a CMS case for 4 years. Every month, every year I have had to fight with CMS over payments and payment schedules. From diversion of income, suddenly paying the maximum into his pension, late payments, job jumping every 9 months so they are “unemployed” for the annual review period. They are currently managed to wangle a nil payment and I have to raise variation after variation for them to look into. They earned 200k last year so how this qualifies as nil payment for his child I don’t know.”
It was thought that the Deduction of Earnings would be a good way to tackle an issue of ’non-payment’ at the source, and in many cases it is effective. However the system is so slow and clunky when it comes to finding out the new working position of the paying parent. There does not seem to be a seamless and timely approach to getting the information about the new job from the tax material, which the DWP has readily available. Changing jobs often, and sometimes slipping through the tax system altogether by working for ‘cash in hand’ is just another loophole in the system being taken advantage of by non-paying parents.
When the amount of child maintenance is assessed, there are certain criteria that would result in a ‘nil assessment’ – meaning that the parent has to pay absolutely nothing towards their child’s financial needs. Zero! Nothing! Not a single penny.
It is important to note that whilst most cases, and through parent case studies we have gathered, they are relating to an absent father not contributing towards the children who live with the mother. However, we appreciate and fully accept that there are lots of cases where these roles are reversed, and the mother is fighting to avoid financially contributing to the upbringing of her children.
“Children’s suffering when they are no longer able to live with both their parents is worsened if money is tight because one parent doesn’t contribute adequately.”
We have heard many cases where the CMS loopholes have been used to do nothing more than continue financial abuse towards an ex-partner, with countless children caught in the middle. ‘Culpable neglect’ is the legal term for when a person fails to meet a known obligation; for example, the paying parent organising their affairs in such a way as to make it impossible to meet their obligations. For instance by paying for expensive foreign holidays instead of paying their child maintenance. This should simply not be happening and should no longer be acceptable for parents to avoid any financial responsibility for a child regardless of contact arrangements, regardless of “other commitments” such as children that aren’t their own.
Covid-19 pandemic has led to further highlighting of the failures in the CMS system. The measures that the CMS put in place as a result of this are likely to be felt for a long time. The closure of phone lines to the CMS call-centres is just one measure that only really benefited the non-paying parent. It meant that the receiving parent could only contact through the online portal which some people don’t have access to, potentially excluding the most isolated and most vulnerable members of society.
CMS say things like “you shouldn’t rely on CMS payments”, but what if there are parents that do? Why shouldn’t they? Financial responsibility for children should be a shared responsibility and there should be ways of supporting that without pushing people into further debt and poverty. We do not think that the CMS is doing what it should and we are firm believers that there are better ways to improve the service and a more effective, so that it doesn't support financial abusers and have further negative impacts on children.
In June 2020, four single mothers launched legal action against the DWP for their "persistent failure" to collect child maintenance payments from the absent parents, citing that ‘unpaid money had forced them to resort to food banks and accumulate credit card debt to ensure they could feed their children’. Given the difference between the official statistics, the anecdotal data, and the lack of transparency in the DWP's figures, it is no wonder there is so much confusion.
A quote from a receiving parent helps to answer the question:
“Why aren’t the outcomes of enforcement action recorded in monetary terms (or at least as a percentage of the money owed?)” If there was a system that receiving parents had more faith and confidence in, I’m confident there would be less cases of child poverty and more parents taking financial responsibility for their children. It is time to stop this abuse, it is time to make a change to ensure our children are able to thrive. ”
This quote from a single parent shows that this hasn’t only been going on in the last couple of years but for a long time:
“I honestly can’t believe this is going on. I’m nearly 38 years old and this was happening to my mum. So it’s been going on at least 30 years. Many of those children that went without maintenance are now adults.”
This quote from a single parent, it’s relating to the pandemic we currently live in:
“My ex got the “Self Employment Income Support Scheme” grant due to Covid, and despite my local MP and the Government writing to me to say that SEISS is in fact income and maintenance should be paid from this, the CMS have argues that payments from this grant are “optional” and therefore my daughter continues to be on £6 a week. I’ve had to cover the shortfall with a credit card because unfortunately her nursery bill, clothing, food etc are not optional.”
The CMS clearly fails our children.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) states 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’.
It is clear that the CMS are failing to meet these obligations to our children and the obligations of the UNCRC. We, as single parents, are calling for all single parents who feel passionately about this to contact us and work with us to lobby for change.
You can read Issue 2- How the CMS is failing our children – Issue 2 – The facts & figures here.
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