Reform of CMS -2023 Bill & 2024 Debate

[MagicJ]

MPs debated the Child Maintenance Service on Tuesday 27 February, in a secondary house known as a Westminster Townhall debate.

The debate was led by Sir Stephen Timms MP. He discussed a report published in April 2023 by the Work and Pensions Select Committee, following its inquiry into the Child Maintenance Service. The report included recommendations on how child maintenance is calculated and how money is paid.

The Work and Pensions Minister, Paul Maynard MP, responded on behalf of the Government, below is a link to the original Select Commitee report:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmworpen/272/report.html#heading-5

You can watch the 2hr debate here:

Parliamentlive.tv

Westminster Hall

parliamentlive.tv

Organisations, like FNF have picked apart the bill as going nowhere near far enough, as well as rolling back in certain areas such as managing arrears and creating liability orders without court.

I did pickup the below recommendation which, if enacted should be beneficial to those with 50/50 shared care:

20. The CMS should ensure its guidance is clear on situations of 50/50 day-to-day care and that, where court orders are made under the expectation of care being equally split, no maintenance is deemed to be due. The use of child benefit to determine that maintenance is indeed due appears to us to be a blunt tool and recommend that the CMS should not use child benefit as an effective proxy to determine whether child maintenance is due. (Paragraph 87)


The report ultimately views CMS through the lens of serving to stem Child Poverty and whilst it properly acknowledges paying parents views, that section was very small.

This included a paragraph that acknowledged CMS was being used vexatiously by the recieving parent with 50% of investigated cases of fraud being false and seperately that the payment thresholds should be reassessed as they were causing undue hardship to paying parents I.e income of both parents should be taken into account, albeit once again not at the detriment of causing child poverty

There was a significant focus through the entire report on those that didn't pay and forcing that payment to address child poverty.

I haven't watched the 2hr debate yet to see how it addresses the lack within the report.

 

[bakedapple]

Looking at the recommendations, I find this one astounding given the number of dual income parents these days:
Recommendation 8: Update the maintenance calculation formula to include both parents’ income. The review finds that the inclusion of only one income in the calculation is increasingly untenable and its perceived unfairness can drive conflict and abuse.

Decline at the present time, whilst we continue to explore options. Our response to this recommendation is encapsulated in our response to Recommendation 5. A review of the affordability of child maintenance will include an assessment of the scope to include both parental incomes in a maintenance calculation.

(for ref:
Recommendation 5: Address issues of affordability of liabilities for low income paying parents. The review recommends legislative reform to address issues previously raised by the Social Security Advisory Committee about the affordability of liabilities. Perceptions of unfairness can exacerbate abuse. Accept)

It is not unknown for the receiving parent to deny access to the children solely for the purposes of child maintenance; including their income in the maintenance calculation will considerably level the playing field for the non paying parent to get fairer access to the children and enable more of 50:50 as the negotiated default.

To the report's credit, it recognises this issue, but effectively kicks the idea of both parents' income into the "too difficult" bucket; given an election this year, I cannot see anything changing this decade as it would effectively double the workload of the CMS.
Once the urgent work on maintenance affordability is finished, the Department should consider a model which incorporates both parents’ income. We suggest that the key criteria the Government use to evaluate any such proposal should include the potential effect on compliance, the scope for any proposals to tackle incentives to parental conflict and potential impact on child poverty. In its response to this Report, the Government should set out when such work will begin.

Novel idea - why not have legislation to enable private maintenance assessors in addition to CMS, as a service paid for by both parents. This way, legislation doesn't have to be built around what the CMS finds easiest but around what is best for the children and fairest for both parents.