Memorandum submitted by Relate
— Our work with DWP and CSA.
— Our views on the increased support
which should be offered by C-MEC (Q.1).
— Our views on the proposed new
sanctions for non-payers (Q.6).
This is Relate's submission to the Work &
Pensions Committee's inquiry considering the proposals contained
in the Government White Paper: A New System of Child Maintenance.
Relate is the UK's largest provider of counselling
services, with 150,000 clients a year. We provide counselling
on all aspects of people's intimate relationships, and we see
individuals, couples, single parents, ex-partners, families, and
children.
Since the announcement of the Henshaw Review,
we have had many conversations with ministers and officials within
the DWP and CSA. To date we have found them very open to our position—namely,
that separating parents want, and need, much more support in helping
them come, and stick, to arrangements over contact and maintenance.
We are pleased that the White Paper explicitly mentions our services,
and those of similar organisations, as possible "solutions"
for parents struggling to come to private arrangements. We hope
to continue working with the Department, and the new agency, to
ensure that this commitment to support services translates into
greater accessibility, greater uptake, and a greater number of
parents adhering to arrangements which are in the best interests
of children.
1. (page 38) We strongly welcome the aim
of encouraging greater access to support services by parents.
Our experience—as well as the evidence given by parents
themselves—is that emotional support is one of the most
important needs of parents trying to come to amicable arrangements
over contact and maintenance in the midst of separation.
We hope that the C-MEC will actually direct
(and, in cases of hardship, fund) potential claimants to counselling,
and other therapeutic, services, when they first make a claim,
or contact them for information. This will help them deal with
their feelings toward their ex-partner—usually the root
cause behind both non-payment of maintenance, and the withholding
of contact—and move beyond them to a co-parenting arrangement,
which lasts.
To do this, C-MEC should build on, and invest
in, existing provision of such. services within the voluntary
sector, and look at ways in which this can enable national coverage
of such services. It could also reward agencies where they can
be shown to have helped individual parents to reach amicable private
arrangements, having been referred by C-MEC.
6. (page 77) We support strong enforcement
of a non-resident parent's (NRP), financial responsibilities
to their children, particularly as an incentive to encourage payment.
However, we note that many non-paying NRPs. are those least
likely to be able to pay—men with low skill levels, and
erratic work histories. We are also concerned about the effect
of some sanctions on second families.
These concerns highlight the need to have support
available that is easily accessible, and properly suited to the
needs of separated parents. Greater support justifies the use
of tougher sanctions for those who do not take it up; it is also
likely to be cheaper than the application of these sanctions.
Most non-payments are down to the entrenched conflict between,
and hurt and anger felt by, ex-partners as a result of the breakdown
of their relationships. Dealing with these issues through targeted
support will help parents put their children first, and develop
long-lasting, flexible private agreements, without the need for
expensive sanctions which will do little to improve children's
well-being.
8 January 2007
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