Untrained staff and flawed systems failing parents, warn Gingerbread and Women’s Aid
Domestic abuse survivors are being put at risk by the Child Maintenance Service, finds new evidence from Gingerbread and Women's Aid.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is replacing the Child Support Agency (CSA), requiring parents who were using the CSA, or new applicants, to apply to the CMS if they need help to sort out child maintenance.
Domestic abuse survivors are expected to make up 50% of parents applying to the CMS, but Gingerbread and Women's Aid have found that staff working there have no specialist training on how to work with survivors or how to recognise financial coercion.
The CMS insists that all parents initially pay child maintenance directly to each other, requiring the parent with care of the children to supply their bank details to the other parent. The CMS will only step in to collect maintenance if payments are consistently missed.
Gingerbread and Women's Aid are concerned that the lack of specialist training for staff, combined with the expectation that parents interact over payments is leaving survivors open to financial and emotional abuse. They warn that some parents are dropping out of the system entirely because they feel unprotected.
The charities have heard from parents who are too frightened to go ahead with direct payments in case their abuser gets hold of their personal details. While the CMS advises survivors to set up non-geographic bank accounts, there is little clarity over how this will work or help protect those at risk: one survivor told Gingerbread that this would still reveal her new name and another found that her bank couldn't set one up.
Gingerbread Chief Executive Fiona Weir said:
"Child maintenance matters. It helps single parents to provide the essentials for their children, yet less than half of single parent families get any child maintenance at all. This makes the role of the CMS crucial. But it's clear that for the many survivors of domestic abuse who will be turning for the service for help, the CMS is not fit for purpose.
"The service as a whole has to get a better understanding of the support that domestic abuse survivors need. As it stands, children aren't getting the financial support they should and survivors are being put in a vulnerable position."
Gingerbread and Women's Aid have also raised concerns over the impact of charges in the new system. The CMS charges a £20 application fee to open a case. While this is waived for domestic abuse survivors, they have to declare a history of abuse and are not directly asked. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) itself has acknowledged that this will mean many survivors end up paying the fee.
If the CMS does step in to collect unpaid maintenance it imposes charges on both parents. Not only do single parents lose out financially, but some have told Gingerbread that they won't move into the collection system for fear of upsetting the other parent. This leaves some trapped in arrangements where the paying parent gets away with paying what they decide, when they decide.
Polly Neate, Chief Executive of Women's Aid, said:
"Women's Aid calls for the Government to ensure women and children have safe child maintenance arrangements in place by fast-tracking domestic violence survivors to the statutory 'Collect & Pay' system, dropping charges for survivors to use the system and ensuring all staff receive specialist training on domestic abuse. The current system is simply not safe for survivors – change is urgently needed."
Gingerbread and Women's Aid are calling for the DWP to:
Roll out specialist training and clear guidance for CMS staff on how to recognise and work with domestic abuse survivors
Offer survivors the option to fast-track to using the CMS collection service
Drop the 4% collection charges for single parents in cases of domestic abuse and review the 20% charge for the paying parent.
Gingerbread is campaigning for significant improvements to the Child Maintenance Service
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