Worth a read in light of what C-MESS is proposing, illustrates how C-MUCK 
takes absolutely no notice of anybody or any organisations inputs and still 
driven by feeding the treasuries coffers, if proof is required please see 
the story referred to by the link 
http://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?SectionID=760&ArticleID=2013529
Where the CSA were demanding almost a mans entire income (he had two kids 
and another on the way) and when he didn't pay they JAILED him for 42 days 
(which costs the tax payer around a grand a week)

If this is how things are going to go we best prepare for life in a police 
state or immigrate, or as sure as hell the New Gestapo will see you and your 
children starve in their quest for treasury cash.

Published  28 February 2007
FAMILIES NEED FATHERS RESPONSE TO
'A NEW SYSTEM OF CHILD MAINTENANCE'

White paper

http://www.fnf.org.uk/files/CSAresponse.pdf

1. This is the response by Families Need Fathers to the White Paper 'A
new system of child maintenance', published in December 2006.

2. Families Need Fathers (FNF) exists to promote an aspect of child

welfare: the need of children whose parents live apart to have the full

involvement of both their parents unless, in exceptional cases, this

would be against the child's interest. As is proper for a charity our first

task is social care work. We support parents to get, and to use for the

best, adequate parenting time with their children. We have a raft of

services to help and advise such parents. We are the most important

single source of help for them. The total number of 'contacts' with them

is now some 400,000 pa. We get core funding for this work from the

DFES. They and other funders support particular projects. There

remains a lot of unmet need. Some 2.5 million parents live apart from

some 4 million children.

KEY POINTS

3. We reply to the specific questions posed in the White Paper. But some

much more fundamental questions need to be raised and answered

first, if a satisfactory reform is to occur. We strongly support children

getting financial support from both parents, in proportion to their

income and wealth, but this has to be rooted in encouraging shared

parenting, for the good of the child.

?? Q: Is the White Paper going to encourage a shared parenting

culture, where both parents customarily, except in exceptional

circumstances, have a responsibility and right to share in the

upbringing of their children?

?? A: No. The White Paper is

?? based on a crude division between the 'parent with care', who has

the responsibilities, cares and joys of parenting, and the 'nonresident

parent', who simply helps pay for the child's upbringing.

This does not come close to capturing the real world. It also

conflicts with the philosophy of the Children Act 1989, which

pioneered the concept of parental responsibility and emphasised

that policy should always make the children's interests paramount.

?? Q: Does the White Paper fairly reflect the financial responsibilities of

both parents in the real world?

?? A: No. There are extreme cases where one parent 'cares' and the

other parent pays or does not pay. But in most cases both parents

look after their children for part of the time, and both incur costs,

either 'current' e.g. entertainment or 'capital'; e.g. the need to have

2

accommodation for the children, to buy clothes, pay for

entertainment etc. The White Paper does not even consider this

issue. It does not seem to understand the social realities C-MEC

will have to deal with.

?? Q: Will increased sanctions improve the payment of child

maintenance?

?? A: Usually no. The roots of non-payment are often in the resident

parent's reluctance to allow a fair share in shared parenting,

including involvement in key decisions on the child's welfare,

contact etc. The other parent protests by non-payment of

maintenance. The White Paper fails even to recognise that this

happens, much less proposes a conclusion.

?? Q: Will C-MEC perform better than the CSA?

?? A: Almost certainly no: as indicated above, the C-MEC's

underpinning is as shaky as the CSA in its various forms, and is

likely therefore to fail. This isn't helped by the hint in the White

Paper that most of the staff will be re-employed in C-MEC.

4. We discuss these issues in more detail below, as well as answering the

White Paper's detailed questions.

Main discussion

(i) Positive points

5. Since much of our comments are critical, we should perhaps begin by

listing those aspects of the White Paper which we support:

?? We support the move to ensure that more of the maintenance

paid goes to the children, rather than resulting in a reduction in

benefits that simply helps the Exchequer. This is a major source

of complaint for many of our members. We welcome the

extension of £10 disregard to cases on the original child

maintenance scheme. The White Paper does not mention the

rules which currently mean the 'resident parent' sees their

benefits reduced if the other parent has the child for, say, two

nights a week on a regular basis. These rules need to be

abolished. They are a barrier to shared parenting. They provide

a disincentive to the 'resident parent' to agree shared parenting

and do not account realistically for the costs of either parent

when shared parenting is agreed. We would prefer to see the

liability to pay support reduced by 2/14 for every 1 night in 14

that a child spends with the 'non-resident' parent - this results in

no payment if the child spends equal time with each parent. The

proposal to raise the minimum payment by non-resident parents

on benefit from £5 to £7 is entirely wrong in principle. It sends

3

the signal that money matters more than keeping both parents in

the child's life. The 'non-resident parent' on benefit has

expenses connected with looking after the child too.

?? We strongly support the emphasis on encouraging parents to

make their own arrangements, without involving CSA/C-MEC. It

is excellent to abolish the rule that 'parents with care' on benefit

are automatically treated as claiming from the CSA. We hope

the abolition will apply to all cases, including past ones where

the 'resident' parent has no wish to involve the CSA. Support

services will, as the White Paper mentions, play an important

role. We are concerned by reports that no additional funding is

planned for these. They should be a priority for the coming

Comprehensive Spending Review (financed, perhaps, by

removing access to legal aid in family law cases). The funding

should be distributed in a decentralised way to organisations

that are already active in the areas and doing good work. We do

not support any new national organisation.

?? We support sensible simplification, such as using latest tax year

information (though see below our comments on using gross

income and compromising tax-payer confidentiality); and having

fixed one year awards except in exceptional circumstances.

?? It seems sensible to use wider sources of information to track

down that minority of parents who are seeking to evade their

responsibilities, though it needs to be within a system that does

not penalise those who are doing all they realistically can to help

finance their children's upbringing.

?? We support a requirement to have both parents registered at the

child's birth. It is unfortunate that the Government has brought

this proposal forward in the context of the CSA, but nevertheless

we strongly agree that a child has a right to know their parents.

We are glad to hear that there will be separate consultations on

the detail, but we hope legislation will follow swiftly. In a minority

of cases the mother will, for good reason, not wish to let the

father know her address. Arrangements should be made in such

cases to keep the mother's address private. But this minority of

cases should not be used as an excuse for depriving the child of

knowledge of the father in many other cases where domestic

violence is not an issue but the mother, for her own reasons,

does not wish to disclose the father's name. In any event, both

parents should always be on the birth certificate, for the child's

sake. There must be a mechanism to review and amend the

registration, if a subsequent DNA test shows a different father.

(Arrangements should be ideally made to do such tests before

the baby leaves hospital, on the request of a person claiming to

be the father.) Donor insemination cases need to be handled

separately. We suggest a provision that, if agreed pre-donation,

4

anonymity applies to everyone except the child. If so, we

suggest that a second person, male of female, could be

stipulated as the father in law. We would like similar

arrangements in the last two cases to apply on parental

responsibility.

(ii) The Broad Approach of the White Paper and the need to promote

shared parenting

6. We now turn to the White Paper more generally.

7. The proposed re-jig of Government policy on child maintenance will fail

again. It is based on the same assumptions as before, namely that

when parents separate all (or virtually all) the responsibility for the care

of the children falls to one of their parents. The role of the other is to

finance the care in a 'family life' from which they are largely excluded.

These assumptions are unacceptable to non-resident parents. They

will continue to be so. Such parents will again refuse to comply with its

requirements. The visibility of the failure of C-MEC may be less,

because of the proposed scaling down of its scale of operations. But

the lack of a child support policy rooted in a policy on shared parenting

will continue to cause trouble.

8. There is a positive way forward, based on modern, egalitarian and child

welfare considerations. This is to promote the sharing, between their

parents, of the care of children in divided families. With this would

come a sharing of responsibilities and costs between parents. Both the

sacrifices and the delights of child rearing will be more fairly shared.

The effects of this policy will be felt across the whole of society in the

gradual diminution of the raft of social problems - child poverty, crime,

gender inequality - among children, young people and even adults that

are created or aggravated by insufficient or unbalanced parental

attention during their formative years. C-MEC's role would naturally

reduce as shared parenting culture assumed a greater role.

9. This is a policy for the short and medium term. The policies needed to

achieve it are many. They require 'joined up thinking' across many

social arrangements. They go wider and deeper than the CSA/C-MEC

itself. One of the fundamental requirements of a strategic rethink is to

see child support arrangements as the handmaiden of policy to

promote the best parenting of the children of divided families. Currently

child financial support is seen as something that has to be railroaded

through irrespective of the damage the institutional arrangements do

to the parenting of the children.

10. Such a policy would be effective for child support, as well as for wider

and more important policy aims, and it will win the consent of all but a

small minority of 'non-residential' parents who do not care for their

children at all, a group FNF holds no brief for.

5

(iii) The broad stance of FNF

11. FNF has been a critic of the state's child support policies. We strongly

support the fundamental duty of parents to provide appropriately for the

costs of their children's upbringing. While we understand the objections

of some compelled to pay child support in the absence of appropriate

parenting and contact arrangements, our advice to them is to respect

the law and to use constitutional means to change it. Paying child

support is often to their personal advantage. While 'contact'

arrangements and financial issues are formally separated in law, a

parent who does not pay child support will almost invariably find this

cited in any legal or other discussion over his (or her, if the 'Non

Resident Parent' is female) parenting time. Many 'resident parents'

also harass or deny contact if maintenance is not properly paid. In

cases of obdurate and long term obstruction of contact, the children

nearly always seek out the father eventually (it is most commonly the

father, but it does happen the other way around) Then it is important for

him to be able to tell them that not only did he explore every avenue to

see them, but that he supported them financially.

12. Having said that, it is impossible to persuade a parent who has a court

order that his children should be allowed to spend time with him, which

the courts refuse to see enforced, that he is not a victim of injustice

when he is faced with enforcement proceedings by the CSA. The

majority of parents who come to us with complaints about the CSA fall

into one of two groups. The first are victims of maladministration. This

group has fallen in size but it is still far too big. A dramatic case was

recently reported, for example, where a father was put in a top security

prison, though he claimed he was not in arrears. 1 The second are

making protests, in the only way they feel they can, at the unfairness

and lack of child-centredness of the parenting arrangements imposed

on their children and themselves. It would be much better to have a

child maintenance system linked to a broader shared parenting

framework, in which 'non-resident' parents who want a greater role in

their child's life are not penalised financially.

13. It may be helpful to flesh out these thoughts by some real examples

from FNF files:

?? A father who is still paying child support many years after

divorce, though the youngest child is now 16. She remains on

benefit and enjoys foreign holidays. He looked after two of their

four children for most of their childhood, with the help of his new

partner.

?? A father earning his living as a driver had his license suspended

by the CSA. His son is disabled and he looks after him for about

1 See

http://www.harboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=760&ArticleID=2013529

available on 9 February 2007

6

30% of the time, but the assessment takes no account of this.

The father was rendered homeless for a long period.

?? Another father was told he could not be considered for a driving

job for which he had applied, because in the past his license had

been suspended thanks to CSA action.

?? An ex-wife took a Member's daughter a long way. Seeing his

daughter involved a 600 mile round trip. He applied to the CSA

for a variation to assist with the costs of the travelling. The net

result, based on travel every 2 weeks, was a reduction in the

weekly amount he paid in child support of around one pound

and 70 pence.

?? "The tax benefits and child benefit all go to my son's mother, and

I pay maintenance on top. Yet he lives with me a third of the

time."

?? A couple moved 90 miles to be where the man's children were

so that the one child who was running from home could move in

with them. This meant his other three children wanted to stay

with the couple two to three nights a week as well and one of the

11 year old twins stated they must love their elder brother more

because we had him living with them. They learned of

proceedings in the Family Court for sole residence of the

remaining three children from the CSA. The CSA reviewed the

case and found the man was owed £5.5k by the ex wife in

overpaid maintenance and yet they still put a DEO in place

increasing the amount owed to the man until NACSA got

involved and got it removed swiftly.

?? "My son lives with me 7 days out of 14 and with mum 7 days out

of 14. There is no dispute, except DWP saying priority to mum

and they can only recognise one parent."

?? An ex-wife has re-married a man sufficiently wealthy to own two

houses worth over £500k each. Our member's daughter spends

half her holidays and every other weekend with him. Yet he is

still subject to a CSA Order that puts him in considerable

financial difficulty.

(iv) Will C-MEC produce positive change?

14. The solution for child support, as we see it, is to allow the children 
and

their 'other parent' to have a sufficient and autonomous relationship

and to give this proper social recognition. Parents share their income,

voluntarily and with pride and pleasure, with children with whom they

share a life. You cannot have children with you without spending

money on them. If the money spent is of direct and visible benefit to

7

them, and this is recognised by all parties, it will naturally flow more

freely.

15. The stance of the CSA - and sadly also of the proposed C-MEC - is,

however, in the opposite corner. It is to take as normal a relationship

between the parents of one carer and one non-residential2 (originally of

course labelled 'absent') and to rely on compulsion to make the latter

finance the former. Once more the solution to the 'problem' of child

support lies outside the CSA/C-MEC itself. It lies in wider social policy,

but C-MEC needs to be part of that wider system. With that policy the

wish of parents, especially male ones, to remain 'providers' for their

children will survive the breakdown of the relationship with the other

parent.

16. We warned Government that the CSA would fail, in each of its

manifestations. We issue the same warning about C-MEC, unless

policy is re-cast radically. A strategy based on exclusion of one parent

from the lives of the children but attempting to compel them to finance

another household/family can expect at the very best only minimal,

resentful compliance. The planned hand-over from the CSA to C-MEC

is so long term and the continuities are so strong that there will be no

'fresh start'. The tragedy - unless our warning is heeded - is that a

more child-centred strategy, based on the rights of children to both

parents, would win consent and co-operation over child support and

have hugely beneficial pay-offs in other respects.

(v) A way forward

17. In the short term, the need is for a clean slate so that the wretched

experience of the CSA can be put aside. This should involve the

complete and final abolition of the CSA and the cessation of its

activities. The state should make up to lone parents the money that

they are owed. There should be an amnesty for nearly all debts. These

would be bold moves, but the cost in pride will be greater than the loss

to the Treasury. Most of the shortfall to lone parents will have been - or

will need to be - made up in various other ways anyway. The

considerable ill-will engendered by the CSA in a socially and politically

2 We recognise that there are some concessions when parenting is shared, but 
their marginal

nature rather strengthens the point. For example, if the two parents share 
the care and

presumably also the cost of the children equally, and the one labelled as 
'carer', possible

trading on the overt sex discrimination in allocating child benefit, has an 
equal or higher

income that the one labelled as non-residential, there ought to be no money 
due from the

NRP. Or possibly the RP should pay the NRP. Not so, his (normally his) 
liability to pay the RP

is only halved. Of course only the parenting costs that fall on the RP are 
recognised. While

the matter has not been researched - this indicating a bias - the costs of 
involved nonresident

parenting may well be of the same order as resident parenting. The basic 
costs -

accommodation and so on - will be much the same. For many NRP's the costs of 
travel to

and from contact and of activities when the children are not at school may 
largely offset

marginal savings on food and heating when their children are in their 
'principal home'. But

such issues have not been considered even worth taking into account. The 
benefit system is

also skewed in favour of the RP.

8

important group merits this recognition. Nor is there any reason to

doubt that the money paid will be used for the benefit of the children

that have been short changed.

18. Most of the debts to the CSA would have proven uneconomic to

recover anyway. One of the fundamental original errors of the CSA was

to assume that NRPs generally had substantial resources withheld.

Frequently, however, they were low paid, ill, unemployed or had other

commitments, such as monies paid out for their children informally,

stepchildren or new families. Considerable efforts were necessary to

extract modest sums. Attempts to do so caused genuine problems to

substantial numbers of alleged non-payers.

19. An amnesty for all debts would be too far. They would cause real

grievances among those who have struggled to comply with their

obligations. But the need is to concentrate the remaining recovery

efforts on cases where there is both the capacity to pay and there has

been neglect of the children. The amnesty should go to all those of low

and lower middle incomes, and all those who can show that they have

been responsible parents in terms of actually spending time with their

children or who have been unsuccessful in reasonable efforts to see

their children. Focussing recovery efforts in this way would be both

economic and just. It would win social support.

20. The next stage would be evolving a strategy for shared parenting. This

would take at least several months to complete. More time would be

necessary before legislation is passed and a further period before

implementation. It should be driven by a revival of the Ministerial

Committee for the Family that existed during Jack Straw's time in the

Home Office. This time, however, it should be led by the DFES and be

charged with resources, status, standing and authority appropriate to

the importance of the task. We are talking of possibly the most

important single factor in the lives of nearly half our children. We must

get rid of the mindset that sees the access costs of the 'non-resident

parent' as exceptional and insists on them paying half the child support

costs of the other parent even when parenting is shared equally.

21. There would need to be some interim child maintenance arrangements.

They would be imperfect. It should not be hard for them to be an

improvement on the present. We would suggest something on the

following lines:

?? The sharing of social benefits for the support of children

between separated parents pro rata the time they spent with the

children3.

?? The exemption from any child maintenance obligations of

parents of low and lower middle income.

3 This could be made less complex than it seems initially; FNF has a paper 
on how this would

be done.

9

?? The revival of the former Lone Parent Premium for Income

Support and Tax Credits.

?? Generous disregards of child support for income support,

taxation and tax credits.

?? The exemption from child maintenance obligations of all NRPs

who spent more than a prescribed amount of time with their

children.

?? The remainder should pay a fixed (and possibly fairly high)

proportion of their taxable income per child, perhaps

automatically deducted at source, but scaled down, if they

spend time with their children according to the time spent.

22. This would be a stop gap, pending more careful planning of

arrangements which dovetailed the two requirements - promoting the

best parenting of children and easing the financial hardship of any

remaining households that could be fairly be described as 'one parent'.

23. The interim arrangements, because they would target prosperous

NRPs who are genuinely neglectful of their children, would enjoy

general social support. They would also be modest in scale and

economic to run. The major public expenditure would be on Income

Support and Tax credit. While this has not been costed, we make the

following comments:

1) The recipients would be some of the neediest children;

2) The Welfare to Work programme would obviously continue and one

can anticipate a steady increase not only of the number of lone parents

who earn, but the amount they are able to earn. Should indeed there

be three levels of requirement to be available for work? Available full

time and available part time? Should those in charge of children under

the age of 16 lose their right not to be available for work if they cannot

show that their ex cannot or will not provide child care?

24. There would be enormous savings in the Government's child care

strategy if it did not totally ignore the free and loving care available to

children from their 'other parent'.

25. We turn now to the detailed questions asked in the White Paper. We

pick out the question in blue, for convenience.

(vi) Consultation questions

25. The following questions have been raised in this White Paper.

Chapter 2

.. Question 1 (page 38): Are the key principles and areas for detailed

work that we have identified the right ones? In particular:

10

- How can we best encourage access to support services by parents

with care and non-resident parents?

- How can we best make a register of private maintenance agreements

an attractive prospect to parents?

- How can Jobcentre Plus most effectively encourage parents claiming

benefit to make an informed choice about maintenance?

As we have indicated above, the White Paper does not identify the right key

principles. The proposals need to be re-cast to encourage shared parenting

wherever possible.

So we would add the following detailed questions:

Given the huge variety of child-care arrangements adopted by couples after

separation or divorce, how can the new system ensure that resources for

bringing up the child are fairly allocated between the two parents?

Is the distinction between 'parents with care' and 'non-resident parents'

adequate? For example, how do we treat couples with shared residence

orders?

Can a more coercive approach to some parents, as proposed in the White

Paper, work in the absence of shared parenting legislation?

Turning to the questions mentioned here:

- How can we best encourage access to support services by parents

with care and non-resident parents?

We are glad to see that the Paper acknowledges the contribution of the third

sector. We see no case, as indicated in 2.26, for building support services

alongside existing services. The services provided by Families Need Father

via our helpline and local meetings, are we believe, an excellent example.

Many of our clients are from the CSA target group. In the year to January

2006, the latest period for which we have detailed statistics, we handled 
1220

calls, a 120% increase over the previous year. 88% of callers were male, 79%

non-resident parents, though only a small proportion concerned the CSA. In

the year to January 2007 we have received 7019 calls. We have answered

3580 calls (a 193% increase) and talked for nearly 1400 hours. The 
constraint

on reaching more people is primarily financial. There is clearly huge 
untapped

demand. We and other organisations know this market. Such organisations

as One Parent Families (York), which is working to involve both parents in

their child's upbringing after relationships break down, should be given

additional funding, not supplanted by a new national organisation. Adding a

fresh organisational layer would be wasteful and inefficient.

So DWP needs to map all existing services and allocate funding in relation 
to

their ability to reach the target market, probably through a bidding 
process.

11

- How can we best make a register of private maintenance agreements

an attractive prospect to parents?

We need much more detail to make an informed comment on this. The brief

reference in 2.28 indicates that the register would be on public view, via a

website and helpline. In some circumstances that might be problematical. But

what would be the purpose of such a register? It would improve the 
statistics

on the extent to which couples make such agreements, but would it promote

their use? We think there is a risk that it would promote the impression,

already encouraged by some other features of the White Paper, discussed

below, that the State wants more information on individuals to make

enforcement easier. We think data would be better collected by separate

sample surveys carried out regularly, with the encouragement of maintenance

agreements, which we support, done via the decentralised support services

provided in the third sector.

And the C-MEC/CSA system should take account of arrangements made in

the legal system, for example, by recognising the significance of Shared

Residence Orders by exempting anyone with such an order form the CMEC/

CSA system.

- How can Jobcentre Plus (JP) most effectively encourage parents

claiming benefit to make an informed choice about maintenance?

In the first place, by referring such parents to the range of support 
services

available. Training should be provided to JP staff to help ensure that they

advise appropriately. Briefing packs for parents, drawn from third sector

materials, could be made available, though they should be kept short and

practical.

Chapter 3

Question 2 (page 51): Paragraph 3.14 sets out what we hope to

achieve through a framework of objectives and principles for the new body: 
do

you think these three aims are appropriate?

The three aims do look appropriate, but we do not see how the proposals

more generally will equip C-MEC to meet the second one, 'encouraging and

empowering parents in their role'. On the contrary, the proposals seem

designed to confine parenting responsibility to the 'parent with care' and

confine the other parent to simply paying for the child's upkeep, in whole 
or in

part. It is very striking that the four principles enunciated in paragraph 
15 of

the Executive Summary do not mention shared parenting. Instead, in a subtle

change of language, they refer to 'encouraging and empowering parents to

make their own financial arrangements wherever possible'. This singleminded

focus on finance will damage children, by discouraging both parents

from playing a full role in their upbringing. We strongly support the 
principle of

both parents making appropriate financial contributions to the child's

upbringing, but that is only one of their responsibilities. Loving, 
cherishing and

12

taking a part in key decisions are also key responsibilities, which the 
Paper's

approach ignores.

Question 3 (page 53): Do the principles for moving forward set out at

paragraph 3.21 provide the right approach?

We would like clarification on the paragraph's reference to 'parents'. Does 
it

mean both parents, as it should, or only parents with residence? Similarly, 
in

the following paragraph, we hope that the reference to 'clients' means both

parents. They both need to be enlisted into seeing the new regime as

beneficial. If those labelled 'non-resident parents' are simply regarded as

milch-cows, C-MEC will quickly experience the same problems as the CSA.

C-MEC should target parents who play no role in their children's lives, not 
the

soft targets that earned the CSA such a bad reputation in its early years.

Subject to those qualifications, the principles look sound, though we have

grave doubts that C-MEC will be able to deliver, as currently proposed.

Chapter 4

Question 4 (page 61): Is our approach of combining a simpler

assessment formula with an exceptions regime the right one?

It has some merit. But it is quite wrong to call the cost to a 'non-resident

parent of contacting a child' an exceptional item. Such costs are at the 
heart

of shared parenting. The formula needs to be re-jigged to recognise that 
both

parents usually incur costs in bringing up their children after a 
relationship has

broken down, and both parents often have income and savings. The system

should not encourage 'resident' parents to stay on benefit throughout the

child's school years.

C-MEC should explain the calculation of child support in clear terms to 
every

assessed parent. This explanation should include any calculation made for

arrears.

Question 5 (page 66): Which of the three approaches outlined in

paragraphs 4.25 to 4.27 should be employed to determine child maintenance

liabilities in a case of this kind?

The proposal to use HMRC income tax information looks like a huge breach

of tax-payer confidentiality, which has implications going well beyond this

White Paper. We believe the Chancellor should be involved in a much wider

public debate before a decision is taken. We note that HMRC has not yet

agreed.

But given the proposal to use income tax data, it is difficult to see why 
the

Paper proposes to use gross income, not net. The income tax allowances are

designed to reflect an individual's personal financial circumstances. Using

gross data loses all this sophistication. Reducing the percentage rates of

13

income payable for each qualifying child is a very blunt instrument for

achieving fair results.

Of the three methods canvassed, the first is manifestly unfair and

unreasonable. The second and third are much fairer, but the third looks

extremely complicated. We think the second - deducting from the income

used to work out their liability the amount that the 'non-resident parent' 
is

paying in a private arrangement or under a court order. - is most 
preferable.

We think the proposal only to allow reduced payments if income in the 
current

is 25% below the previous tax year is far too draconian. 10% would be a

much better level. People whose income falls by 24.9% could be in severe

financial hardship and this should be taken into account immediately.

There is no commitment in the paper to excluding pension contributions from

the calculation. We would like the Government to make this clear.

Chapter 5

Question 6 (page 77): Are there other approaches to enforcement that

we should consider?

It is, frankly, odd not to ask respondents what they think of the proposed

enforcement methods. They have already been subject to a good deal of

adverse criticism. It is worth commenting briefly:

(i) Confiscating driving licenses and passports and imposing curfews

will often reduce a parent's earning abilities. It is very difficult to see

how this is in the best interests of the child.

(ii) What evidence does the Department have of the likely effectiveness

of the proposed 'naming and shaming' website? How many will

bother to visit it? Will parents listed really see this as a deterrent?

They will certainly not see it in a positive light.

(iii) Removing the need to go to court over a Liability Order is a

curtailment of civil liberties, and makes an interesting contrast with

Government's continued willingness, which we oppose, to provide

legal aid for family court cases.

(iv) Will businesses welcome being enlisted as unpaid enforcers of

maintenance agreements?

(v) Collecting monies directly from financial institutions again seems to

be a way of bypassing the courts.

Paragraph 5.9 raises a very important point. It claims, without providing 
any

evidence, that these more coercive methods have produced results in the US,

Australia and New Zealand. Yet half US states have shared parenting

14

legislation, and the Australians passed a landmark Act in 2006. So in these

places coercion is set in a framework where both parents are encouraged to

carry on their duties and responsibilities after separation. The White 
Paper, as

noted above, fails completely to do this. We would still like to see the

evidence, but emphasise here that it has to be seen in this light.

Because of the civil liberties aspects and the likelihood of C-MEC errors, 
the

increased emphasis on administrative sanctions is wrong. Certainly, only a

court, preferably a District Judge, should be allowed to take away a 
passport

or a driving license. It is somewhat reassuring to hear that for human 
rights

reasons the Government does not propose these powers for cases involving

someone's livelihood, but these arguments still weigh heavily. And someone

may not need a license now to earn a living, but what happens if

circumstances change?

Question 7 (page 77): Is the shift from a predominantly court-based

enforcement system to an administrative approach the right way to make

enforcement more effective?

Effectiveness, as we have already indicated, is not the only test, though we

recognise that the system needs to act in that minority of cases where 
'nonresident'

parents are trying to evade their responsibilities as parents.

Administrative methods may be more rapid-acting, but they carry with them

significant risks of injustice. Maladministration cases and worse are likely 
to

increase sharply. And enforcement, we repeat, will be more successful, the

more parents feel that the system overall treats them and their children 
fairly.

So resources need to be switched into support services that aim to involve

both parents in bringing up their children.

Question 8 (page 80): Are we right to give more focus to chasing

collectable debt?

The Paper fails to ask for views on factoring debt (also p 80, paragraph 
5.43).

This technique is likely to involve heavy handed private debt collection

methods. The paper says that it will only be done with the resident parent's

agreement. The Government, including DWP, is trying currently to address

the financially excluded: those who lack the skills and knowledge to access

sources of personal finance responsibly. The C-MEC clientele is likely to

contain many who are financially excluded. The idea that they will fully

understand the nature of factoring is unlikely, frankly. Moreover factoring

services have to be paid for. Presumably the fees will be netted off 
payments

to the child. This is wrong in principle.

On chasing collectable debt, we agree that this is a sensible use of 
resources.

Question 9 (page 80): Is our approach in seeking write-off powers in

strictly limited circumstances the right one?

We agree, but see our own more radical approach.

15

(vi) FNF Discussions

26. This response was thoroughly discussed in draft with individual FNF

Members with experience of the CSA, with branches and was agreed by FNF

Trustees.

Families Need Fathers

134 Curtain Road

London

EC2A 3AR

28 February 2007