Changes to the UK child support system brought in to reduce staff workloads have been branded a 'catastrophic failure' in a major new report led by Scottish charities.
In 2012 child maintenance agreements were taken out of the control of the social security system with the idea that parents would make their own arrangements.
The changes were badged up as "empowering" parents to take responsibility, on grounds that those who already had family-based arrangements saw “higher satisfaction and compliance”.
However new research has found that the number of separated families with no arrangement in place has increased significantly since the system was reformed by the Tory Lib Dem coalition government, led by David Cameron.
The reforms introduced a mixture of fees, deductions and "bureaucratic hurdles" to access support which the report said had deterred parents from seeking help and increased conflict and distress.
The changes "ignored the obvious interpretation" that separating families with relatively high resources and/or relatively low conflict were more likely to pursue a family-based arrangement.
Under the Collect and Pay system paying parents are charged a 20% additional surcharge, and payments to receiving parents are deducted by 4%.
Direct Pay is a more hands-off approach where there is less parental conflict with the CMS calculating the payments owed, and leaving parents to transfer funds.
They also ended automatic referral to the child maintenance service (CMS) where 'resident' parents (who primarily care for a child) receive certain benefits.
In 2011-12, 600,000 families (25*) had no arrangement. By 2019-20 this had grown to 1,030,000 (42*) – a 17-percentage point increase.
Where domestic abuse had impacted the household, the system was found to "exacerbate existing trauma and conflict" in part because there are fees involved.
One single mother said: "He stopped paying and I was scared to reach out to the CMS to change it [to Collect and Pay].
" I had to see him because he had visitation with my daughter, and I was terrified."
The report by One Parent Families Scotland, IPPR Scotland and Fife Gingerbread draws on a mix of quantitative and qualitative research, including focus groups with ‘paying’ and ‘receiving parents’, expert consultations, and statistical analysis.
More than third of the 1,071 Scots parents polled in March this year described their experience with the CMS negatively and said it exacerbated conflict.
A third (34 per cent) of parents with sole care of a child said their income was too low to be “able to provide them with the most basic essentials every day."
In Scotland, 40% of children in poverty live in single-parent households (primarily women) but only half of separated families receive any child maintenance, and only a third receive full payments.
Research has already shown that when maintenance is paid, it can reduce the child poverty rate from 40 to 30%.
The research showed that the service is based around the UK's "outdated" male breadwinner model, which it said disadvantages single mothers and contributes to higher child poverty rates.
A regular complaint among paying parents (primarily fathers) was that child maintenance left them struggling financially and undermined the quality of care they can provide their children
Many felt that the CMS prioritises picking a 'winner' and a 'loser' above achieving fair outcomes.
There was majority support for government playing a bigger role in ensuring children receive maintenance including forcing parents to pay and providing state support if they are unable to pay.
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The report noted that the DWP has recently removed £20 upfront charges for accessing CMS services and is considering reducing the fees it takes out of maintenance payments.
It said the changes go in the right direction, but there are many other dimensions of the system that simultaneously drive parents away from accessing statutory support.
Parents described long waits on the telephone helpline, staff seemingly not trained for cases involving domestic abuse, inconsistent records, and unsympathetic interactions.
Casey Smith, a researcher from IPPR Scotland said: "Too many separated families fail to sustain child maintenance arrangements, and a significant reason for this is the shortcomings of the Child Maintenance Service.
“This is because the UK government reformed the child maintenance system in 2012 in an attempt to reduce caseloads at the Department for Work and Pensions.
"The idea was families instead would make their own arrangements.
"But the experiment has failed catastrophically – for every additional family-based arrangement since 2012, two separated families ended up with no arrangement at all, bringing the total now to over a million."
A pilot project run by Fife Gingerbread assigned parents a support worker to help them navigate the system garnered positive results with child maintenance payments of £22,500 agreed.
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The child poverty rate among single adult households is consistently higher than households with two adults, and in 2022/23 stood at 44% versus a rate of 24% among children living with two or more adults.
Laura Millar, Strategic Manager of Fife Gingerbread said child maintenance was an "overlooked" tactic.
She added: "Through this project, we have been able to test a new role and service for families in Fife, with a dedicated child maintenance project coordinator.
"This has been an incredibly steep learning curve, as the existing system is incredibly complex, frustrating and bureaucratic. And is not designed to support families."
The report found there was a "clear case" for policy reform to increase the income of resident parents but cautioned that parents who currently do not pay child maintenance tended to be on a low income.
It suggests a strategy to tackle the high child poverty rate among separated families must consider reforms to the child maintenance system and wider social security changes.
Satwat Rehman, Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland said: "After separation, mothers, who usually become the primary caregivers, continue to face income barriers, which are not adequately addressed by the social security system.
"Child maintenance is one of the few state-involved systems that can help alleviate these structural disadvantages for single parent families.”
The Herald contacted the UK Government for comment.
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