Joint statement issued on Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill

Gingerbread and Surviving Economic Abuse published a joint statement on 14 December 2022 on the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill, introduced by Sally-Ann Hart MP¹. The charities said they welcomed the Bill but that it "does not go far enough in making the fundamental changes needed to the system of payment of child maintenance for domestic abuse survivors"¹.

Under current legislation, Direct Pay, where the receiving parent arranges payment with the other parent themselves, is the default option¹. Collect and Pay, where the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) collects the payment from the paying parent and passes it on, can be used where the paying parent agrees or where the CMS is satisfied the paying parent is "unlikely to pay" without it¹. The Bill would reference domestic abuse directly as a reason to use Collect and Pay, available where either parent requests it on the grounds of domestic abuse by either parent, with the abuse still needing to be evidenced¹. The CMS can also take payment directly from the paying parent's earnings, bank account, benefits or pension, with no contact needed between the parents¹.

The charities set out three amendments they want made to the Bill¹:

On charges, the receiving parent is currently charged 4% of the maintenance received and the paying parent 20% on top of the maintenance liability¹. The charities said these charges "clearly indicate that the current system is designed to penalise those who go on to Collect and Pay"¹. They noted that DWP Minister Tom Pursglove said consideration was being given to exempting domestic abuse survivors from collection charges¹.

On enforcement, the statement cites Surviving Economic Abuse's Cost of Covid-19 report, which found that 84% of women were worried about their access to child maintenance payments as a result of the perpetrator's actions during the outbreak, 22% reported the perpetrator had stopped paying, 20% said they had paid less and 18% said they had paid unreliably¹. The charities repeated the report's call for minimum payments where the paying parent fails to pay, recoverable through enforcement action¹.

Both organisations made submissions to the independent review of CMS processes for supporting victims-survivors of domestic abuse, which recommended exemption from collection charges, clear policies and procedures, and increased training for CMS staff¹. The statement says the review "has been finalised, and we call for its publication"¹. The date of publication of the review has not been reported¹.

Why it matters for households

Child maintenance payments are a routine part of many separated parents' budgets, and the statement describes withheld or unreliable payments as a form of post-separation economic abuse and coercive control¹. The Bill, as described, would change how a parent gets onto Collect and Pay: domestic abuse by either parent would become a stated ground for requesting it, subject to evidence¹. That matters to receiving parents who currently rely on Direct Pay, where payment depends on the other parent's cooperation¹.

The charges are the other direct money effect. A receiving parent on Collect and Pay currently loses 4% of the maintenance received, and a paying parent pays 20% on top of the liability¹. The charities want survivors exempted, and say a minister indicated this was under consideration; no change had been announced in the statement¹. Their third proposal, minimum payments when the paying parent fails to pay, would put money in receiving parents' hands sooner, with the DWP recovering it through enforcement¹. None of the three amendments had been made at the time of the statement¹.

What happens next

The statement calls for the independent review of CMS processes for supporting victims-survivors of domestic abuse to be published urgently, and for the three amendments to be made to the Bill¹. It also calls for the collection charges to be "urgently reviewed"¹. No timetable for the Bill's stages, for a decision on charge exemptions, or for publication of the review is given in the statement¹. The regulation and policy area covers how such rules are set and changed.