Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Make the reduction of child poverty central to the new child support policies

Child poverty cannot be tackled without effective child support policies. Following the reporting of Sir David Henshaw's review into child support, CPAG raised a number of concerns. Although appreciative of the central role given to child poverty reduction around reform options, we argued that for child support effectively to assist the reduction of child poverty, the following principles should be reflected within reform.

• Deliver adequate and stable maintenance, even if it is difficult to enforce collection.
• Consider the needs and ability to pay of second families - reform should not reduce poverty for one group of children by increasing it among another group of children.
• Minimise conflict between parents - conflict is acknowledged to be highly damaging for children's well-being.

CPAG further argued that the child maintenance premium should be extended to those in receipt of benefits (not just the new scheme cases) and that all maintenance should be disregarded when assessing entitlement to income support, as it is for child tax credit.

We also emphasised the importance of effective advice provision in delivering child support. While CPAG welcomes the importance given to the third sector within the Henshaw review, we believe that there is a lack of capacity to provide this advice and there is a need to build independent capacity.

Our initial evidence to the review further emphasised the often unrecognised poverty in second families. Serious thought needs to be given to the use of an advance payment, or 'guaranteed maintenance', system for child support as an important mechanism to protect the financial security of vulnerable children. We are concerned that this has been rejected, particularly in a document that argues that child poverty should be placed at the centre of the proposals.

Finally, CPAG's initial letter to Sir David Henshaw concluded by noting that, in our experience, services to poor people usually become poor services. We believe that an agency with a small number of families on its books, who may be poor and have complex needs, risks becoming a poor-quality service in the long run. We urge the Government to place high-quality service provision at the forefront of policy makers' thinking in designing the delivery and management of any new agency.

The use of private arrangements

Though CPAG agrees that it is important to facilitate the choice to make or maintain private maintenance arrangements, we are concerned that this may embed an imbalanced power relationship between ex-partners. One partner may settle for less than children have a right to expect in order to maintain a harmonious relationship with the other partner. In terms of making sure that private arrangements 'stick', both in terms of the level at which maintenance would be paid and also in the frequency and regularity of the payment, we see a need for some official recording of the arrangement. This has both a symbolic and practical importance. In symbolic terms, it demonstrates that an arrangement has been reached and sets out the terms; in practice, it is likely to encourage greater compliance by non-resident parents and offers a speedier route to enforcement if non-payment occurs. Though a register does potentially draw the state into an involvement with a 'private' arrangement, where this has broken down, CPAG believes this to be in the child's best interest.

The maintenance disregard

Perhaps the clearest anti-poverty component within the Henshaw report is the proposal to increase the size of the disregard. To increase the disregard, or to disregard all child support maintenance for the purposes of benefit assessment (this is already the case for tax credits), would have a direct impact on poverty. It would increase some loneparent families' income above the poverty line and reduce the depth of poverty of others, and support both paid work and tax credits in tackling child poverty. We understand that the Government has not reached a settled view as to the size of the disregard, and that concerns exist over possible work disincentive effects (if out-of-work income were higher than in-work income). Henshaw rejected the argument that a higher disregard acts as a disincentive, in part on the basis of the empirical evidence of the Wisconsin child support programme, which found that both full and partial disregards had no impact on employment. Given that an unstable income currently acts as a barrier to work, we believe that a higher disregard would actually increase the likelihood of parents with care going into or sustaining paid work. Far from acting as a disincentive, a higher disregard could, therefore, combine the double benefit of reducing poverty and supporting employment.

Enforcement

Much of the recent discussion around the reform of child support policy has emphasised the need to ensure effective enforcement. CPAG agrees with this and would like to see the Agency, and whatever body replaces it, use existing powers more effectively to pursue those refusing to pay financial support on behalf of their children. Alongside strengthening current enforcement, we urge the Government to couch messages and publicity in terms of helping ensure non-residents can provide adequately for their children, not in terms of tackling feckless parents shirking their responsibilities. To stigmatise fathers as 'deadbeat dads' not only fails to appreciate that most want the best for their children but risks creating a backlash of future non-compliance.

Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Contents page
Introduction
The Government’s record
What should the spending review deliver?
Provide most for those children at greatest risk of poverty
Work towards better jobs, not just more jobs
Ensure the safety net protects families against poverty
Maximise the contribution of child benefit within family support
Introduce free at the point of delivery good-quality childcare
Make the reduction of child poverty central to the new child support policies
Make education truly free at the point of delivery
Provide benefit entitlement to all UK residents equally, irrespective of immigration status
Reduce the disproportionate burden of taxation on poorer families
Improve the quality of delivery and gear it to the needs of the poorest families
Notes

Print the entire document