Campaigners are calling for the UK government to scrap charges for using their child maintenance service as it puts domestic abuse victims at greater risk of harm.
They describe the government’s 20% charge to parents who pay child maintenance and 4% charge to parents who receive payments through a remote service as “indefensible”.
When the controversial Child Support Agency was replaced by the Child Maintenance Service, the government brought in the Collect and Pay service which promised greater support for domestic abuse victims, allowing child maintenance payments to be made without contact between parents.
But campaigners say the additional charges mean greater danger for abuse victims, and warn government requirements for victims to prove abuse are too stressful.
They say victims are put off moving onto the Collect and Pay system because it costs them – and is likely to further antagonise their ex who faces ever greater charges. Instead, they continue to receive their child maintenance payments directly from their ex, putting them at risk of further harm.
The murder of Emma Louise Day, 33, from Croydon, killed by her partner over five years ago following a child maintenance dispute, sparked a review of CMS with detractors warning they continue to be “blind to the realities” of victims.
Scottish Women’s Aid and One Parent Families Scotland are part of a nine-strong campaign group calling for MPs expecting to debate the new Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill at Westminster on March 3 to scrap Pay and Collect charges and bring in better domestic abuse training for CMS staff.
Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland Satwat Rehman said: “It is quite simply indefensible for someone to be charged a fee by the government for help with accessing essential financial support for their child from their abusive ex-partner. At the same time, single mothers tell us they’ve avoided asking to be moved onto Collect and Pay because their ex would face a 20 per cent charge, and they fear this will escalate hostility and put themselves and their child at greater risk.
“If the government is serious about making the CMS work better for those affected by domestic abuse, it has to remove these charges.”
Dr Marsha Scott, Chief Executive of Scottish Women’s Aid, said said: “This Bill has the potential to address some of these issues, so important against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis which disproportionately affects women and children.
“As it stands, the Bill does not reflect the dynamics of coercive control. This failure will put women and children at risk of further harm from abusers.”
The Poverty Alliance’s Policy and Campaigns Manager Ruth Boyle said: “The Collect and Pay system takes money away from children and hands it over to the state. That is unjust and weakens child maintenance as a protection against poverty. Single mothers and their children are already more likely to be experiencing poverty, and this system further threatens their financial security. The Government must take urgent action.”
DWP statistics show three in five parents applying to the CMS experienced domestic abuse. Meanwhile 93 per cent of parents paying maintenance are men. In Scotland 81 per cent of domestic abuse in 2021-22 had a female victim and male perpetrator.
A CMS review recommended that the charges be kept in place to “reflect the operational and logistical reality that introducing extra legislative protection for those who have been subject to abuse in Direct Pay will come with a cost to the taxpayer.”
The DWP said: “Our priority is to support domestic abuse victims using the Child Maintenance Service, which is why we have recently outlined new laws to strengthen protections.”
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