Clause
5
Provision
of information and
guidance
Andrew
Selous:
I beg to move amendment No. 75, in
clause 5, page 2, line 19, leave
out ‘provide to parents’ and insert
‘ensure that parents are provided
with’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 76, in
clause 5, page 2, line 23, leave
out ‘may provide information’ and insert
‘may ensure that information is
provided’.
No.
17, in
clause 5, page 2, line 24, at
end add—
‘(3) The Secretary
of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow information and
guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in conjunction with other
services delivered by any relevant authority to parents and children
who are experiencing or who have experienced family
breakdown.
(4) In this section
“relevant authority”
means—
(a) any Minister
of the Crown or department of the Government of the United
Kingdom;
(b) a public body
specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the
purposes of this section.
(5)
Any regulations made under subsection (3) may be made so as to have
effect for a specified period not exceeding 24
months.
(6) A pilot scheme may
provide that its provisions are to apply only in relation
to—
(a) one or more
specified areas or
localities;
(b) one or more
specified classes of
person;
(c) persons selected by
reference to prescribed criteria, or on a sampling
basis.
(7) A pilot scheme may
make consequential or transitional provision with respect to the
cessation of the scheme on the expiry of the specified
period.
(8) A pilot scheme may
be replaced by a further pilot scheme making the same or similar
provision.’.
No. 35, in
clause 5, page 2, line 24, at
end add—
‘(3) The Secretary
of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow information and
guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in conjunction with other
services delivered by any relevant authority to parents and children
who are experiencing or who have experienced family
breakdown.
(4) In this section
“relevant authority”
means—
(a) any Minister
of the Crown or department of the Government of the United
Kingdom;
(b) a public body
specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the
purposes of this
section.’.
3.45
pm
Andrew
Selous:
The clause deals with the provision of information
and guidance, about which we have heard a lot this afternoon. The hon.
Member for Angus said earlier that he did not think that it was
appropriate for CMEC to provide some of the practical advice to parents
on the issues of separation about which I have been talking. I
responded that I agreed with him, and I told him that my hon. Friends
and I had tabled amendments that would address that. That is what
amendments Nos. 75 and 76 would do, in that they would change the
phrases “provide to parents” to “ensure that
parents are provided with” and “may provide
information” to “may ensure that information is
provided”. That is not semantics; I am not just playing
grammatical games. I am making the point that, as the Minister just
said, the important thing is that the information and guidance should
be provided, not that it needs to be provided by CMEC. Indeed, in many
cases, because of the reputation and record of the CSA, it may best not
be provided by
CMEC.
Amendment No. 17
would ensure a cross-governmental approach to the provision of advice,
information and guidance. The Minister has just been talking about that
and now has the chance to put his vote where his words were, so I hope
that he will welcome the amendment warmly and I look forward to
receiving his support. The amendment has the support of a number of
bodies outside the House that are concerned to ensure that the range of
issues that confront separating parents can be dealt with. I hope that
the Minister will look favourably upon it.
It is my contention, as I have
said several times this afternoon, that if there is back-up support and
advice in respect of all the issues that separating parents find
themselves dealing with, then it will be easier to accomplish agreement
on issues to do with money. The Minister has told us many times that
that is the prime and overriding objective of CMEC. That was the
reasoning behind the amendments, and I look forward to hearing the
comments of other hon. Members.
Paul
Rowen:
The clause is one of the most significant and
important parts of the Bill, because much of what it seeks to do is
new. As was seen in the evidence sessions on Tuesday, a range of
information and guidance is going to be provided by web-based,
telephone and face-to-face methods. I hope that that will go a long way
towards ensuring that CMEC gets off to a good start.
The difficulty is that the
clause is vague. The amendments, particularly amendment No. 17 and our
similar amendment No. 35, would put flesh on the
bones of the clause so that it would contain definite
information as to who or what will be responsible. As the Minister
said, the issues will affect more than just one Department; it is a
cross-departmental responsibility, so it is important to make it clear
in the Bill that the relevant Departments will have to understand their
responsibilities to ensure that whatever range of providers is set up,
the people involved will have the information and will know where to
go. One of the things
that can bedevil a new law is a lack of cross-departmental
support. By setting up a skeleton explanation of how that information
and guidance will be produced and who will be responsible for it, we
can ensure that CMEC delivers a step change from what has happened with
current arrangements through the CSA.
Mr.
Plaskitt:
I am grateful to hon. Members speaking to the
amendments. We had assumed that the purpose of amendments Nos. 75 and
76 was to place a duty on the commission to contract out its
information and guidance functions, and that is more or less what we
heard. Amendments Nos. 17 and 35 aim to provide the Secretary of State
with the power to make regulations for the commission, enabling it to
work with other Government Departments in delivering services to
separating parents. Amendment No. 17 would provide the commission with
powers to pilot those services.
Andrew
Selous:
I want to clarify something that the Minister
said. Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 mean that information and advice could
be provided by bodies other than CMEC, but do not prevent CMEC from
providing it. It would, as an organisation, be able to ensure that
something was
happening.
Mr.
Plaskitt:
I entirely accept that, but the measure pushes
the emphasis towards the possibility of the services being provided
externally. Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 are unnecessary because clause 5,
in conjunction with clause 8, makes it perfectly clear that any
function of the commission, including the information and guidance
function, may be contracted out. We believe that the function could be
delivered successfully through a mix of the private and voluntary
sectors, but it is not yet possible to identify who will provide it,
because the commissioning process has not yet started. We have already
engaged with the voluntary sector and are in the process of undertaking
an assessment of the market capacity to deliver an information and
guidance service from 2008. We hope that that work will help the
commission to make informed decisions about how the information and
guidance service be delivered most effectively.
Amendments Nos. 17 and 35 would
provide the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations for
the commission to work together with other Departments to deliver
services for separating parents. Amendment No. 17 would provide the
commission with the power to pilot those services. These amendments are
also unnecessary because there is no legal barrier to prevent the
commission from working with other Departments or public bodies on any
pilot
or national programme. Indeed, we intend to encourage such working.
Clause 7 already provides for the commission to carry out work on
behalf of other Departments as well as other public bodies and vice
versa. I wish to
underline the importance that we attach to the need to work across
narrow departmental areas to support parents more effectively. It is
important because research strongly shows that the majority of
separating parents have an array of issues to resolve—they are
often confused about where they can get the right help and end up
relying solely on family and friends because they cannot access more
informed support. Issues in those circumstances range from maintenance
to housing, debt, contact, domestic violence, benefits and tax credits.
Parents frequently need emotional support as
well.
In drafting
clause 5, we have taken that evidence on board. Members of the
Committee will note that subsection (2) allows the commission to
provide information on a range of issues wider than the pure issue of
maintenance, when those issues emerge as part of an overall discussion
with parents. We expect that the commission will use that power to link
people to a range of wider organisations that provide more specialist
support. We fully expect it to provide a wider range of written and
web-based material on separation issues. We have been impressed by the
quality of material available to parents through, for example, the
Australian system that was mentioned earlier. We will look to the
commission, working with the voluntary sector, to provide such
material. On a wider front, the Government have clearly signalled the
importance that they attach to providing parental support through the
creation of the new Department for Children, Schools and Families,
which, as we have discussed, has responsibility for leading family
policy evolution across Government.
One of the key pieces of work
that the Department will be taking forward is “Aiming high for
children: supporting families”, by which the Government are
committed to improving information for parents. Resources will be made
available between 2008 and 2011 to improve the quality and
accessibility of information for parents through the “Parent
Know-How” campaign, which will offer a range of communication
channels, including telephone helplines and websites. We will ensure
that the new information and support service is linked to
“Parent Know-How”.
Local children’s
information services that are run by local authorities will also direct
parents to the commission when appropriate, because we want parents
seeking help with child maintenance to be directed to the commission
quickly when they first seek help on a related matter. If that work
were to lead, in due course, to a new and substantial cross-Government
initiative, the commission would already have the power to provide
support on maintenance issues as part of a pilot, and clause 7 will
give the commission the power to deliver that pilot in its entirety if
so desired.
In
summary, I assure hon. Members that there is already provision in the
Bill to deal with the issues addressed by all four amendments, and on
that basis I urge them to withdraw the
amendment.
Andrew
Selous:
We seem to be getting a recurring pattern, where
the Minister has huge sympathy with points being made by Opposition
Members and says that he wants to achieve what we want, but it is not
there in the detail of the Bill. We are then promised that the
regulations are coming.
Clause 5 is a very short
clause—two tiny subsections—and has been written with a
broad brush. I have a lot of respect for the Minister and am sure that
he will keep his word. However, there are 78 pages in the Bill, and it
seems to me that there might be a few more things that the Minister is
talking about, and, indeed, singing the praises of, that are not down
in ink in the Bill. We will obviously have to wait for details on
implementation and regulations as we go forward. I am grateful for the
tone of what the Minister has said. Although I intend to press
amendment No. 17 to a Division, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Andrew
Selous:
I beg to move amendment No. 8, in
clause 5, page 2, line 20, leave
out ‘purpose’ and insert
‘purposes’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to
discuss the following amendments: No. 6, in
clause 5, page 2, line 20, after
‘existence’, insert ‘and
renewal’.
No.
33, in
clause 5, page 2, line 20, after
‘existence’, insert ‘and
continuation’.
No.
7, in
clause 5, page 2, line 22, at
end insert
‘and of
securing the collection of any arrears of maintenance which are
due’.
No. 5, in
clause 5, page 2, line 22, at
end insert—
‘(1A)
Information and guidance provided under subsection (1) must
include—
(a) provisional
maintenance assessments, consisting of an estimate of the maintenance
liable if an application were made to the statutory scheme, to enable
parents to establish voluntary maintenance
arrangements;
(b) template
maintenance agreements, consisting of a pro forma
maintenance agreement, to enable establishment of voluntary maintenance
arrangements.’.
No.
37, in
clause 5, page 2, line 22, at
end insert—
‘(1A) The
Commission must, within one year of the coming into force of this
section, publish a report on how it will provide specialised advice and
guidance to parents in the following
areas—
(a) separation
and divorce,
(b) child
care,
(c) child maintenance
arrangements,
(d) the role of
the Commission,
(e) personal
finance, and
(f)
housing,
both through telephone
services and face-to-face
services.’.
No.
67, in
clause 5, page 2, line 22, at
end insert—
‘(1A) The
Commission must, within one year of the coming into force of this
section, publish a strategy for providing information and guidance to
parents, including—
(a)
how many and what new bodies will be set up or funded by the Commission
to provide information and
guidance;
(b) which bodies will provide telephone services and
which will provide face-to-face
services;
(c) the budget for
the marketing and promotion of information and guidance sources, broken
down by destination;
(d) which
bodies or programmes will be co-funded with other Government
departments and on what
basis;
(e) specific strategies
for disseminating information and guidance to
parents—
(i) claiming
jobseeker’s allowance and income
support,
(ii) in employment on
means tested benefits,
(iii)
not eligible for means tested benefits,
and
(iv) low level users of
statutory maintenance services, targeted by gender and
ethnicity;
(f) specific
strategies for disseminating information and guidance in accessible
formats to parents with disabilities in compliance with the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995, and the Commission’s Disability
Equality
Scheme.’.
Andrew
Selous:
We continue our deliberations on clause 5 with
this second group of amendments. Amendment No. 8 would simply make a
number of additional purposes part of the clause. Amendment No. 6 would
ensure that effective maintenance arrangements could be not only set
up, but renewed and taken forward on an ongoing basis throughout the
lifetimes of the children concerned. Amendment No. 7 deals with the
incredibly important issue of arrears, about which we had a debate this
morning, and you will probably prefer us not to go over it again at
length, Mr. Chope. I think that the hon. Member for Rochdale
and I are at one on the importance of that topic and will continue in
Committee and on Report to ensure that that issue does not go beneath
the radar, as will our colleagues in another place. For the benefit of
members of the Committee, I will not repeat the arguments that I made
twice this morning; no doubt, they would not be pleased still to be
hearing my voice in an hour’s time.
4
pm
I commend
amendment No. 5, which deals with the information and guidance that is
provided, to the Minister as worthy of his favourable consideration.
His phrase, contained in clause 2, is “appropriate voluntary
maintenance arrangements”. We had a brief debate about that by
virtue of an earlier amendment that I tabled on what
“appropriate” means. The purpose of amendment No. 5 is to
give parents an idea of what they would be getting within the statutory
CMEC scheme. They do not have to be bound by that, but there may, for
instance, be many vulnerable parents with care—largely women and
mothers—who have no idea what they should expect to get. Perhaps
they have been in an abusive relationship or one where their partner
has been overly dominant and they have been cowed into submission and
done what he told them to do, which may be why they want to be shot of
him and are separating. Perhaps the man involved will propose a pretty
rum deal. Would not it be sensible, from the point of view of these
vulnerable women, to give them an idea, saying, “Were you in the
statutory CMEC scheme, which the Minister doesn’t want you to
get into, this is the proportion of your partner’s,
ex-partner’s or husband’s income that you would look to
get”?
This is a really practical,
sensible idea. I seriously hope that the Minister considers it, if not
now, perhaps later. I commend it to him, his team and officials in the
Department, because it is practical, sensible and meets the need of
vulnerable women who may not have an idea about what they could
reasonably and appropriately expect from their husbands. There is no
requirement on them to make an arrangement that would mirror exactly
what they would get in the scheme. They have the flexibility to match
precise arrangements to their situation in terms of timing, in the way
that the Minister talked about earlier, or they may leave the agreement
on one side when the child goes to stay with the non-resident parent. I
accept all that. However, just as a ball park indicator, this provision
would be useful. It is practical and I commend it to the Minister and
the Committee for their favourable
consideration.
Paul
Rowen:
Again, we are continuing our earlier debate about
what information should be provided and how that should be done. I want
to talk about amendments Nos. 33, 7, 37 and 67. Amendment No. 33 is
similar to amendment No. 6, tabled by the hon. Member for South-West
Bedfordshire, in that we are talking not just about the creation of
child maintenance arrangements, but about whether the important words
“renewal” or “continuation” should be used.
Again, it has to be understood that children grow up, their needs
change and over that period any arrangements that are set in place will
need to change to reflect that. That needs to be reflected in the
Bill.
On amendment No.
7, as the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire said, we are
concerned about what happens to arrears and we want to ensure that when
the new body is set up the commission understands and appreciates that.
That is why it was
tabled.
As we heard in
the discussion on Tuesday, there is interest in what sort of
information services CMEC will provide. It was interesting to hear the
Ministers talk about how they have gone about doing that. I welcome the
involvement of the voluntary sector, because that is a positive way
forward.
Like the
previous amendment, amendment No. 37 seeks to broaden the measures to
include the provision of information and advice, which traditionally
has not been provided by the CSA. We are attempting to ensure that all
the services that children receive are not delivered in a disjointed,
departmental way.
Amendment No. 35 would set out,
in a similar way to a service level agreement, the information that a
parent using CMEC could expect to get. It comes back to what I said
earlier about setting out responsibilities in the Bill and how they
will be delivered. We hear talk about child care arrangements, housing
and personal finance. The CSA has not necessarily dealt with such
things in the past, but if we are to set up an information and guidance
arrangement, we need to ensure that we make available that level of
provision. It might have been provided by a number of different bodies
in the past, but we are trying to put in place a one-stop-shop system,
which ensures that a parent who is going through a difficult divorce
and dealing with domestic violence gets all the advice to which they
have a right.
We are not asking for such steps
to be taken right away. We are saying that we must wait until the
commission is set up and the commissioners and the staff are in place.
We want to see a report that sets out the Department’s strategy
to ensure that the available information and guidance are provided
equally throughout the country by a range of appropriate providers. We
want to know the amount of money, broken down by destination, that will
be spent on promoting the information.
We also want to know how that
information and advice will be delivered. In the evidence session on
Tuesday, we heard that there is still some concern because, in the
past, too much of it has been delivered by telephone. We want to ensure
that arrangements for face-to-face information provision are in place,
because cases often involve vulnerable people who are at a crisis point
and who need face-to-face contact with someone who understands their
situation and can give broad advice.
We want to see specific
strategies in place to ensure that services are available to address a
broad range of matters with which the parent might need assistance.
Those might include employment, means-tested benefits, jobseekers
allowance or issues of gender or ethnicity. With amendment No. 67, we
seek to ensure that the commission has a proper strategy to enable the
system to deliver not only what the CSA has delivered, but a broader,
Government-based agenda, which provides all the information that a
parent in such circumstances has the right to expect. I have no doubt
that the commission will not do all that alone. It will need to come to
arrangements with other Departments and non-governmental bodies. We
want to see a clear strategy that sets out how it will be
delivered.
Mr.
Plaskitt:
I thank hon. Members for their amendments. In
their entirety, they seek to widen the information and guidance
function, or place an additional requirement on the commission to
report on certain key aspects of that function within specified time
scales. I should like to be as helpful as possible with this group of
amendments. In general terms, I believe that they are unnecessary,
however, because clause 5 already covers the issues that hon. Members
are concerned about and the information and support service that we
expect the commission to provide is already being set up to cover such
issues.
Before
covering the amendments, I remind the Committee that clause 5 places a
duty on the commission to provide parents with the necessary
information and guidance to help them choose, make and keep effective
maintenance arrangements, therefore supporting our overall objectives.
The clause will enable the commission to develop new services that
provide parents with impartial guidance to help them to make informed
choices about financial arrangements for their children. We expect the
commission to create specific new services to deliver that function,
working with the best private, voluntary and state
providers.
We expect
the commission to use three main routes to channel the service: a
national contact centre, a web-based service and face-to-face support.
That will create a service that seeks to engage with the maximum number
of separating parents, encourages parents to
make an informed choice about their maintenance arrangements and
supports parents in acting on that choice. In doing so it will also
provide follow-up support at the request of parents to review their
existing arrangements, re-establish voluntary agreements or refer
people to the statutory maintenance service, if necessary. We
particularly want to draw low-income families into the new service and
are working with Jobcentre Plus and Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs to enable the commission to reach people who might not actively
seek help to secure effective maintenance
arrangements. I will
take the amendments in turn. Amendments Nos. 7 and 8
are intended to ensure that the information and guidance function
covers both the setting up of effective maintenance arrangements and
the collection of arrears under the child maintenance scheme. As we
discussed under clause 2, securing ongoing compliance and enforcing
previous debt within the statutory scheme is already required under the
commission’s objectives and as such the amendment is
unnecessary.
I should
point out that we would not expect our information and support service
to provide detailed technical information about the various ways the
statutory scheme can enforce maintenance or negotiate debt settlements.
Rather, it would be focused on providing more general information,
namely, that if a parent has doubts about an ex-partner’s
willingness to pay maintenance, an application to the statutory scheme
may be more
appropriate.
Amendments
Nos. 6 and 33 intend to ensure that the commission
provides information and guidance with a view to helping parents
establish voluntary arrangements and supporting their continuation or
renewal. Clause 5 already enables the commission to provide that level
of service. As I mentioned earlier, our policy intention has always
been for the commission to provide that level of
service.
Amendment No.
5 would require for two particular tools to be provided as part of the
information and guidance provided to parents considering voluntary
arrangements: a provisional maintenance assessment, and a standard
maintenance arrangement form. The amendment is unnecessary because we
need the commission to learn from experience and if such tools prove to
be unhelpful to parents in practice, we do not want to place a legal
obligation on the commission to continue providing them. That said, the
evidence that we have at present suggests that they may well be helpful
and we are working on the basis that the commission will provide
standard maintenance arrangement forms from the outset. We also expect
a much larger role for a broad maintenance calculation function to help
parents to initiate negotiations on levels of payment and to address
potential imbalance of power issues. That would be a widening of the
service that we already provide to around 1,000 parents a month through
the CSA’s online
calculator.
Amendments
Nos. 37 and 67 would require the commission to publish reports within
12 months of clause 5 coming into effect detailing a range of issues,
such as the organisations it is contracting to provide telephone and
face-to-face services, its approach to working with hard-to-reach
groups and how it will be provide advice on a range of maintenance and
non-maintenance issues. Again, the amendment is
unnecessary because the commission, like many non-departmental public
bodies, will be obliged to prepare, publish and lay before Parliament
an annual report each financial year to allow scrutiny of its
activities. That report will cover a range of issues including the
commission’s current and future strategic direction. Such a
report is bound to cover much of the material that the hon. Members
seek to include in the
Bill. 4.15
pm
In addition, to
be helpful, much of the material will be available well before the time
scales implied by the amendments. As my earlier comments made clear, we
have already started to develop detailed designs for the commission to
build on, so that it can deliver the service in late 2008. For example,
with regard to the provision of the information and support service and
its potential funding, the detail surrounding the amount is
commercially sensitive at this time and will not be put in the public
domain before inviting potential providers to tender for provision of
the service. However, since the service is due to be in place
nationally by late 2008, funding levels and successful bidders will be
in the public domain well before the date implied by the
amendment.
I also made
our developing strategy clear for proactively identifying, referring
across and supporting parents with care to make maintenance
arrangements in order to realise our statutory objectives and maximise
the impact of such reforms on the alleviation of child
poverty.
In summary,
while I do not agree that any of the amendments are necessary, I hope
that those who tabled them recognise that we take the subject matter
seriously and that we are keen to provide as much detail as possible.
The information and support service is a new and critical element of
the overall service that the commission will provide, and we place
great importance on working with it to get the service right for
children and their parents. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for
South-West Bedfordshire will not press his
amendments.
Andrew
Selous:
There is a danger at this time of the afternoon
that the Minister and I will sound like scratched records, because we
have been around the block a bit on these issues. I repeat that I am
grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given, as far as they
go, but many people outside this House would be grateful to have those
assurances in writing and in the Bill, so I will press amendments Nos.
5 and 17, as I indicated earlier. However, I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Amendment
proposed: No. 5, in
clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end
insert—
‘(1A) Information
and guidance provided under subsection (1) must
include—
(a) provisional
maintenance assessments, consisting of an estimate of the maintenance
liable if an application were made to the statutory scheme, to enable
parents to establish voluntary maintenance
arrangements;
(b) template
maintenance agreements, consisting of a pro forma
maintenance agreement, to enable establishment of voluntary maintenance
arrangements.’.—[Andrew
Selous.]
Question put, That the
amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes
8.
Division
No.
4
]
Question
accordingly negatived.
Amendment
proposed: No. 17, in
clause 5, page 2, line 24, at end
add—
‘(3)
The Secretary of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow
information and guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in
conjunction with other services delivered by any relevant authority to
parents and children who are experiencing or who have experienced
family
breakdown.
(4)
In this section “relevant authority”
means—
(a) any Minister
of the Crown or department of the Government of the United
Kingdom;
(b) a public body
specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the
purposes of this
section.
(5) Any
regulations made under subsection (3) may be made so as to have effect
for a specified period not exceeding 24
months.
(6) A pilot scheme may provide that its provisions
are to apply only in relation
to—
(a)
one or more specified areas or
localities;
(b) one or more
specified classes of
person;
(c) persons selected by
reference to prescribed criteria, or on a sampling
basis.
(7) A pilot scheme may
make consequential or transitional provision with respect to the
cessation of the scheme on the expiry of the specified
period.
(8) A pilot scheme may
be replaced by a further pilot scheme making the same or similar
provision.’.—[Andrew Selous.]
Question put, That the
amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes
8.
Division
No.
5
]
Question
accordingly negatived.
Clause 5 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
Further
consideration adjourned.—[Mr.
David.]
Adjourned
accordin
gly at twenty-one minutes past
F
our o’clock til
l
Tuesday
24 July at half-past Ten
o’clock.
| 
