The Austin Lafferty Solicitors & Estate Agents Blog

Single parent charity Gingerbread has commented on the release of new figures by the government that show there is at least £1 million of child maintenance arrears in each one of the 650 parliamentary constituencies.

Gingerbread’s Chief Executive, Fiona Weir, said: “These arrears have accumulated over many years. Not all of it will be collectable, sometimes for the simple reason that the parent liable to pay genuinely can’t afford it. But parents who are owed maintenance for their children need to know that the CSA has done all it can to enforce the responsibility to pay it.”

In just over a year’s time, all existing CSA cases will begin to be closed and parents will have to pay in future to have their child maintenance collected by the new Child Maintenance Service. Gingerbread is calling on the Government to do all it can to reduce the money owed to parents in the next year, so that these parents do not end up having to pay the new service to collect arrears that the CSA should have collected.

The Minister in charge of the child maintenance system has promised intensive action against irresponsible parents who have failed to support their children after separation.

It comes as new figures show sharp increases in the use of key enforcement powers against parents who refuse to pay. Deduction Orders - where money is removed directly from debtor’s accounts - have trebled since 2009. Driving disqualifications for non-payment have risen eightfold since 2008.

Child Support Agency data also shows that more than 5,000 past and current CSA cases are over £50,000 in arrears.

Work and Pensions Minister Maria Miller:

“These shocking figures underline the long- term failure of a system that has let down countless families. We are now taking tougher action against those who have refused to pay. All parents who are still owed CSA arrears can be assured that we will take all reasonable steps to recover this money for them.”

As the Northern Ireland Assembly carries out a debate on the subject of kinship care, the Fostering Network has called on the Government to launch a public awareness campaign to ensure kinship carers get the essential advice and support they need.

At a point of crisis when a child can no longer live with its birth parents, their families do not always have access to important information about the range of options available. This means they and the child could miss out on vital help and support they are entitled to receive.

Often the best option that could be available is formal kinship care, where the child could qualify for services that all children in care receive. The relative looking after the child could also access the finances, practical support and training on offer to foster carers.

Margaret Kelly, director of the Fostering Network Northern Ireland, said: “As the vast majority of formal kinship carers in Northern Ireland are our members we know how valuable they find access to the extra support available. The financial and practical support, as well as training and advice, makes a huge difference.

“However, we know too many families don’t have access to the right information at that challenging and critical time. A public awareness campaign would be an important step forward in ensuring these families are well informed and can make the right decision for them and the children.”

A recent study by Family Rights Group into kinship care in England has found that family and friends carers, who are raising some of the nation’s most vulnerable children, are not receiving sufficient support from local authorities.

When children are unable to live with either of their parents, official guidance stipulates they should be enabled to live with a member of their extended family or social network, provided this is feasible and in the child’s best interests. However, the study found that these kinship carers, caring for an estimated 250,000 children, are being left to fend for themselves and suffer significant levels of hardship.  

Key findings from the study include:

• One in five children (20%) being cared for by a friend or family member had first been placed in unrelated foster care before eventually being moved to a kinship arrangement, creating twice the upheaval and placing unnecessary burdens on an already stretched care system.
• Forty-five per cent of English local authorities had not published a family and friends care policy, more than five months after the government required them to do so.
• Almost half of carers (44%) surveyed said they had received no practical help from their local authority and 95% identified at least one form of support they had needed, but not received - most mentioned several. The great majority – more than 70% - rated the support they had received from their local authority as poor or very poor.

The Fostering Network has issued a warning to the Scottish Government that foster children will not have all their basic needs met unless they receive proper financial support.

All foster carers receive a weekly allowance, which is designed to cover the costs of caring for a fostered child, from clothing to food and toys to books.

However, the charity has published the results of a new survey, which found that in 2011-12, 69% of local authorities gave their foster carers allowances below the Fostering Network’s recommended rates.

The Fostering Network’s recommended minimum allowances start at around £130 per week and increase with the age of the child, and are largely accepted as the benchmark for the costs incurred as the result of fostering.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland there are recommended minimum allowance levels set by governments. But in Scotland, while guidance suggests local authorities should pay attention to the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum rates when setting their own allowances, the Scottish Government does not enforce this and local authorities are free to set their own allowances. This means children in neighbouring councils could be treated very differently with some receiving as much as £100 more a week.

Over 5,000 children were living with 3,300 foster families on 31 July 2011 in Scotland, which is an increase of 7% over the same time the previous year.

The Fostering Network is now urging the Scottish Government to introduce a statutory minimum allowance for all fostered children and to ensure that local authorities are properly funded to pay this rate to all foster carers.

Scotland’s Chief Statistician has recently published the latest statistics relating to children in care and child protection.

Key findings of the publication include:

• At the end of July 2011 there were 16,171 children looked after by local authorities, an increase of 2% over the same period in 2010. The number of looked after children has increased every year since 2001, and is at its highest since 1981.
• There were 3,662 young people reported to be eligible for aftercare services on 31st July 2011. Around 36% of those receiving aftercare and who had a known economic activity were in education, training or employment, a decrease of 1% over 31st July 2010.
• At 31st July 2011 there were 1,810 children and young people under 21 years old being looked after on a current planned series of short term placements.

The data also shows that:

• At 31st July 2011, there were 2,571 children on Child Protection Registers, a 2% increase over the previous year.
• In 2010/11, the total number of registrations on to child protection registers rose by 9% (from 3,551 in 2009/10 to 3,884 in 2010/11), whereas the total number of de-registrations showed no change compared with the previous year.

The Hague Conference on Private International Law is to convene Part II of the Sixth Special Commission Meeting to review the practical operation of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention from 25th to 31st January 2012.

The Child Abduction Convention applies typically where one parent has moved a child abroad without the consent of the other parent and without the permission of a court. In such a case, the “left behind” parent may apply through the Hague system for the prompt return of the child.

The Hague Child Protection Convention provides for co-operation among States Parties on a wide range of cross-border child protection matters, e.g., parental disputes over contact with children, the protection of runaway children and cross-border care.

The Special Commission programme includes, among other things, presentations and discussions on:

• the enforcement of mediated agreements:
• grave risk of harm defence in return proceedings;
• international family relocation; and
• the future of the Malta Process, a dialogue between senior judges and high ranking government officials from Contracting States to the 1980 and 1996 Conventions and non-Contracting States with Sharia based law. The Process is aimed at improving State co-operation in order to assist with resolving difficult cross-border family law disputes in situations where the relevant international legal framework is not applicable.

Source: the Hague Conference on Private International Law

A senior Conservative Peer has announced his intention to challenge the Government's plans to charge single parents to use the future Child Support Agency.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who as Margaret Thatcher’s Lord Chancellor introduced the Child Support Act 1991, has tabled an amendment that would exempt from the charges those parents who have no alternative but to use the statutory maintenance service, because private arrangements are not possible or appropriate. The amendment is due to go to a vote on Wednesday 25th January.

The amendment would prevent the Government imposing the following charges on parents who turn to the statutory maintenance service because, without its help, their children would not receive fair and regular child maintenance:

• An up-front application charge levied on the applicant (overwhelmingly ‘parents with care’, around 97% of whom are mothers) in order to use the future new Agency. The Government is discussing a charge of 100 or £50 for an applicant on benefits.

• A ‘collection charge’ taken by the Agency from each maintenance payment it collects, in the range of 7-12% of the payment, before the money is passed on for the child/children.

There is a further ‘collection surcharge’ which the Government proposes to levy on the ‘non-resident parent’, additional to actual maintenance due, in the range 15-20% of the maintenance liability, where the Agency has to step in to collect the maintenance to ensure it gets paid. This would not be affected by the amendment.

Gingerbread Chief Executive Fiona Weir said:

“We are very grateful to Lord Mackay for taking up this vital issue in the Lords, and the indications of support he has received so far show the high level of cross-party concern at the government’s proposals.

“We fully support efforts to help separated parents work together to deal with the financial, emotional and practical consequences of separation. But the government needs to realise that in very many cases that isn’t possible, and if charges are introduced then it will be children who lose out.”

Barnardo’s Scotland is issuing a desperate plea for people to put themselves forward as potential foster carers – particularly for older children.

While there is considerable focus on placing babies and younger children, the charity highlights the needs of older children. There needs to be a range of placements so that the system works for all children and young people.

Barnardo’s Scotland acting director, SallyAnn Kelly, said:

“All children and young people deserve and need a loving home in order to thrive. We urgently need more people to consider becoming foster parents to children over the age of ten.

We know from our experience that older children in care can need extra support. They need carers who can help them overcome emotional and behavioral difficulties, and provide much needed stability.”

There is a general shortage of foster families across Scotland, with at least 1,700 new foster families needing to be found within the next 12 months.

The situation is particularly worrying as the number of children in care who need foster families has continued to increase year on year, but the number of carers coming forward has not matched the need. Figures from the Fostering Network show that the number of children in care in the UK living with foster families at any one time has risen every year since 2005, from 49,700 to over 59,000 in 2011.

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) has recently published findings from a survey conducted in 2010 to determine the number of families that have used the Child Maintenance Options telephone service to set up a family-based child maintenance arrangement.

Key findings from the survey include:

• Around 25% of parents who had used the Child Maintenance Options service between July 2008 and January 2010 had an arrangement which included regular financial payments only; 16% had an arrangement based on ad-hoc support only; 23% had both regular financial payments and ad-hoc support; and 37% did not have an arrangement.
• Those with regular financial payments were asked how the arrangement was established: 48% had an arrangement set up via the CSA; 48% had a family-based arrangement; and 4% had an arrangement set up via the courts.
• Of those with an arrangement (family-based or statutory), almost half were established after contact with Child Maintenance Options (48%) and 42% were established before contact with Child Maintenance Options. The remaining 10% were unsure at what point the arrangement had been set up.
• Of those who put an arrangement in place after contact with Child Maintenance Options, 41% said that the service had played a large role in helping them to set up an arrangement.
• Almost three-quarters of those with regular financial payments received or paid all or some of their child maintenance. Of those, 77% received or paid their payments always or usually on time.
• Of those without a child maintenance arrangement, the majority of parents (63%) said they were not likely to make a child maintenance arrangement in the future.

The research also found that the most common reasons cited by parents with care for not having an arrangement in place at the point of the research were:

• they do not have or want any contact with the other parent (23%);
• they do not know where the other parent was living (16%);
• there was a domestic violence issue (9%).

The most common reasons cited by non-resident parents were:

• they could not afford it (20%);
• they did not want contact with the other parent (15%);
• they did not know where the other parent lived (12%).

New research from single parents’ charity Gingerbread has shown that child maintenance payments lift one in five poor families who receive it over the poverty line – but poorer single-parent families are the least likely to receive any maintenance.

The research has prompted calls for the government to rethink its proposed charges for using the Child Support Agency (CSA), which could shut even more families out. The plans include a fee of up to £100 just to apply for CSA help, and the Agency taking a 7-12% cut from all maintenance payments it collects.

The Gingerbread research comes as new government data shows over 876,000 children rely on the CSA for their maintenance, underlining the increasing need for the Agency in ensuring that parents living apart from their children meet their financial responsibilities.

However, the analysis also found that single-parent families living below the poverty line were least likely to receive any maintenance. Just 31% of single parents in poverty received maintenance, compared to 50% of single parents with income levels above the national median. 720,000 eligible families have no child maintenance arrangement at all.

A divorcing couple from Connecticut were ordered by a judge to give each other their passwords for their Facebook and online dating accounts, reports the New York Daily News.

The couple were going through an acrimonious divorce and custody battle. The husband had discovered that there may be information online which would discredit his wife and help his custody claims, and asked for access to her online accounts to verify. The wife complied with the request, but at the same time asked a friend to delete any incriminating evidence from her accounts.

At this point the judge intervened, and ordered both parties to exchange log-on details for their social media accounts. He also issued an injunction forbidding either side from deleting any information while the divorce was ongoing.

The Child Support Agency has forcibly deducted a record sum of money from a father's bank account in order to settle 16 years worth of child maintenance he failed to pay for his daughter.

Using powers requiring banks to open up the accounts of indebted parents, investigators found enough money in a single deposit account to repay his entire debt of £108,000. The amount was frozen to allow the man time to appeal and later seized.

In another case a mother from London, whose ex-partner refused to pay for his child for eight years, has received more than £20,000 taken from his bank account via a lump sum deduction order.

With an estimated £3.7 billion owed in unpaid child maintenance, Ministers have signalled their determination to crack down on irresponsible parents who fail to support their children.

Work and Pensions Minister, Maria Miller, said:

“We are also fundamentally reforming the child maintenance system. The flawed rules under which the CSA operates give parents no incentive to pay up on time, still less collaborate with their child's other parent to make sure their children are properly supported.”

The current Child Support Agency scheme is set to close to new customers from next year. A new child maintenance service will be launched in the biggest overhaul of the system since it was first set up in 1993.

New UK-wide research has revealed that adoption agencies are struggling to find homes for sibling groups. A general reluctance to adopt groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together means that these children may miss out on permanent homes, the British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) has warned.

The research, which was conducted amongst local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies across the UK, was undertaken as part of National Adoption Week (31st October – 6th November 2011). BAAF is concerned that these children, alongside children aged 5+, and children with disabilities, may not find a ‘forever family’ if more adopters do not come forward.

Key research findings include:

•Just over 90% of adoption agencies said that there is a shortage of families willing to adopt sibling groups.
•Around 80% of adoption agencies admitted it has become harder to find families for sibling groups within the last 10 years.
•All of the agencies asked told BAAF that they need more people to come forward and adopt harder to place children.

These figures reinforce the concerns highlighted by the recent statistics released by the Department for Education which identified that the number of children adopted from care had dropped to 3,050 – a decrease of 5% from 2010.

Scotland's Chief Statistician has published statistics on the civil business of the Court of Session and sheriff courts in Scotland in 2010-11.

The statistics relating to family cases in 2010-11 show that:

• - Divorce or the dissolution of a civil partnership accounted for 84% of the 149 family cases initiated in 2010-11 in the General Department of the Court of Session. Of the 134 divorce and dissolution cases disposed, 85% were undefended.
• - The majority of family cases in the sheriff courts were for divorce or the dissolution of a civil partnership, with 76% of cases initiated in 2010-11 being of this type.
• - Over three-quarters of the remaining family cases initiated in 2010-11 in the sheriff court related to parental responsibilities and rights. Of these, 44% related to contact, 28% to residence and 28% to other parental responsibilities and rights.
• - Applications for a warrant to keep a child in a place of safety continued to increase in 2010-11, up from 1,462 in 2009-10 to 1,550 in 2010-11. Nearly all of the applications recorded as being disposed were granted.

The Government has launched a three month consultation on planned structural changes to the child maintenance system. The proposals involve transferring the functions of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission into the Department for Work and Pensions, under direct Ministerial control.

A father who hadn't paid child support for his daughter for over 16 years has had a record sum of money seized from his bank account, reports the Telegraph.

A recent study of family lawyers in America has found that the weak U.S. economy is creating problems for couples seeking a divorce, and is making it difficult for parents to abide by child custody arrangements.

A couple are to lose their young daughter after an Italian court ruled that they were incapable of looking after her properly, reports the Telegraph.

A recent survey by charity Gingerbread has found that around half of single parents currently using the Child Support Agency (CSA) will not be able to afford to pay the fees proposed to access the new child maintenance service.