Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 348)
WEDNESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 1999
MR JIM
PARTON, MS
KAREN RANDALL
AND MR
BARRY PEARSON
340. Which countries?
(Mr Pearson) Australia has a similar scheme, Norway
does, I am not sure about Sweden, and New Zealand does. There
are at least 14 states, there may be more, in the United States
that operate a similar symmetrical formula.
Dr Naysmith
341. Still on second families, your section
7, "First Children First",[15]
you make it clear that you disapprove of the proposal that was
in the White Paper but not in the Green Paper to do with percentage
rates for a first family's children versus the second family's
children. Why do you think it changes between the Green Paper
and the White Paper?
(Ms Randall) The Green Paper was a consultative
paper so presumably the Government took note of what was said
to them about that and came down in favour of the proposal that
they have come up with now. They have clearly decided to say that
first children will be slightly more favoured than children in
the second family. I think our only objection to that is when
we are talking about child support we think that all children
of all families should be treated equally as a moral principle.
We also think that the original proposal the Government made was
more transparent. If you have two children in one family, the
first family, you will pay 20 per cent of your net income and
if you have one in the first and one in the second then it seems
logical to us that you split that 20 per cent and have ten in
each. What the Government has gone for in that situation is you
would pay 12.75. It is not quite as transparent for people to
work out for themselves.
342. From what has been said this afternoon
it sounds as if you have got a lot more access to ministers than
some of us around the table. Do you think that this change was
for moral reasons or for social policy reasons?
(Ms Randall) I would be guessing but I think perhaps
lobbying was perhaps stronger on the other side. I am guessing,
I am not sure.
343. Who do you know who was lobbying for this,
that second family children should be better treated than first
family?
(Ms Randall) It is not that they should be better
treated—
344. Financially.
(Ms Randall) I think perhaps lobbying from single
parent groups that first families will be losing out under the
other proposal, and in fact that was stated quite explicitly in
the White Paper, the Government took that on board.
Mr Pond
345. Just a quick question on your scheme of
shared care, your 15/20/25 per cent for the parent with care.
Would that include parents with care on income support?
(Ms Randall) No.
346. How would you deal with those, the symmetry
would break down?
(Ms Randall) It applies the same criteria to the parent
with care when she is the non-resident parent as it would to the
non-resident parent who never looked after the children at all.
At the moment there is the plan for a minimum £5 deduction
but that is exempted for cases of shared care. So for a parent
with care on income support and a non-resident parent on income
support, neither would have that minimum £5 deduction made
because the acknowledgement is that they are sharing the care
of the child. Of course the non-resident parent is already at
a disadvantage because, unlike the parent with care, he only gets
the single person's allowance whereas the parent with care on
income support will get the additional allowances, housing benefit,
child benefit, on top of it, so she is already in an advantageous
position.
Ms Buck
347. Forgive me if this is in the details. Could
you just run through for me for a minute what your definitions
are of "fixed costs" for this purpose? What are your
assumptions?
(Mr Pearson) When I constructed these I did not specifically
have a definition of fixed costs, I simply took the White Paper
statement that there were fixed costs and then said "okay,
I will accept that, now let us apply it systematically to both
parents". These are the consequences of that, so all I was
really doing was just accepting the statement in the White Paper
that there are these fixed costs and then applying them systematically.
348. I am not unsympathetic to some of the points
that have been made about the need for absent fathers to be given
assistance to look after the children, but what I have found over
the years, not just in CSA cases, but over the years most tiresome
is listening to the non-resident parents saying, "I give
him pocket money and I buy the trainers", and I think we
have got to unpick this issue of fixed costs and non-fixed costs
a bit. The housing cost clearly is a fixed cost, as is the Weetabix
and so forth which are just day-to-day costs, but the issue of
child care in particular is so often ignored in that calculation
and the issue of who buys the clothes and shoes which phenomenally
actually falls disproportionately on the parent with care. I just
want to make sure that in making a case which has merits to it
in principle, we do make sure that it is an honest case which
really does recognise that the fixed costs are not just about
the housing component and which is actually reflecting the true
reality of the family situation between two households.
(Ms Randall) And I think that is a concern
of the National Council for One Parent Families as well as it
has been expressed to us and yes, that is a real concern. I think
what we would also point out is that fathers often have contact
at the weekends and weekend contact carries with it also certain
costs. There are the costs of entertaining the children, taking
them out. They do not just sit at home in front of the television
for the weekend. Therefore, there are different costs. I am not
saying that they are more, but there are different costs there,
so whilst they might not be buying the school uniform, they might
be doing other things and taking the children to clubs over the
weekend, which is quite common, and I think that needs to be looked
at as well. The fixed costs, we have not broken them down into
what they might also pay, but we have just accepted the costs
in the White Paper, as Barry has said.
Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very
much. That was extremely useful and thank you for your attendance.
15 See Ev p. 117. Back
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