The Austin Lafferty Solicitors & Estate Agents Blog

A recent survey of divorce lawyers in America has found that 56% of respondents reported seeing an increase in the number of mothers paying child support during the past three years, while 47% also noted a rise in women being responsible for alimony throughout the same time period.

"The court system always ends up reflecting changes in our society and this is certainly the case with issues regarding who pays child support and alimony," said Ken Altshuler, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, which carried out the research.

"As more women achieve success on their career paths, they are also finding themselves increasingly responsible for financial obligations during and after the divorce process."

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.”

Fathers who no longer live with their partners and are on benefits should be made to work if they refuse to take financial responsibility for their children, claims think tank Policy Exchange in a new report.

The report calls for the government to target these individuals and fast track them on to work experience schemes to try and get them back into the labour market. Men who refuse to participate should have their benefits removed.

The report notes that other countries, particularly the US and Germany, have been far more successful in making sure that absent fathers on benefits are taking on their parental responsibilities.

The report says that it is time the government forced these men to take responsibility for their actions. It makes a number of recommendations, including:

• Imposing work obligations on absent fathers claiming benefits.
• Requiring both mother and father to include their names on the birth certificate.
• Keeping child maintenance payments in place for each child regardless if the parent goes on to have more children with new partners.

The report also recommends exempting single parents claiming Income Support from paying a fee to access the Child Support Agency (CSA).

According to Policy Exchange, the government’s proposals to introduce charges are a sensible attempt to push those parents who are capable of making their own arrangements into doing so. However, the new arrangements will mean people on benefits paying £50 to access the CSA, the equivalent to almost a week of Income Support. If they are trying to chase payment from an absent father on benefits who is obliged to pay £5 a week, the total they can expect to gain over a year from the CSA would be £260.

Therefore, charging to access the CSA would deter those who most need financial support from accessing the service.

 

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%).