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We welcome the progress the Department for Work & Pensions (the Department) has made in simplifying the way it administers child maintenance, through the introduction of the first phase of the child maintenance 2012 scheme. The Department implemented the scheme carefully in stages, and there is no evidence of the backlogs or IT failings with which previous child maintenance schemes have struggled. However, there remain risks ahead, from the introduction of charging for statutory services, and from closing legacy cases and moving them to the 2012 scheme. Responses to charging are uncertain and the Department will need to monitor whether, in practice, parents take up family-based arrangements as planned, rather than rely on state intervention through the Department's scheme.
The 2.5 million separated families in the UK have several options for arranging child support. Around 1.1 million rely on statutory government-run schemes that assess, collect and make payments. Other families set up their own (family-based) arrangements or use the court system. Around 600,000 families have no arrangements at all. In December 2012, the Department introduced the first phase of the child maintenance 2012 scheme. This replaces two previous schemes for child maintenance which had struggled with IT problems, leading to poor customer service and incomplete information about outstanding debt. The 2012 scheme is designed to maximise the number of children benefiting from child maintenance arrangements and reduce government spending on administering child support. It introduced new rules for calculating payments, a new IT system for managing cases, and charges for using and enforcing the scheme. Newly separated parents access information through an online and telephone 'gateway', which explains the benefits of the choices available, and provides guidance on how to set up family-based arrangements.
The first phase of the 2012 scheme introduced new systems and processes, and simplified the way maintenance is assessed. The second phase, which was due to start in June 2014, involves the introduction of charges for parents using the statutory service (a £20 application fee, a 20% collection fee for paying parents, and a 4% fee deducted from maintenance paid to receiving parents), and the staged closure of legacy cases until 2018.
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