New child support system is unsafe for domestic abuse survivors, charities warn

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The Government’s new system for allocating child support is putting survivors of domestic abuse at risk, two key charities have warned.

Women’s Aid, which provides support to domestic violence victims, and Gingerbread, which represents single parents, said the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) was both not safe for survivors of domestic abuse and could also see them missing out on payments they were entitled to.

The CMS began to replace the Child Support Agency in 2012 but the charities say that serious problems have begun to emerge since it was set up, leaving it “not fit for purpose”.

Charities say staff at the new service have no specific training in working with domestic abuse survivors or recognising signs of financial coercion, despite DWP estimates that 50 per cent of parents applying to the service will be victims of domestic abuse.

The CMS’s approach of requiring parents to liase with each other directly also means that domestic abuse survivors have to give their former partners their bank details. The charities say the interactions leave victims open to further emotional or financial abuse.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said many domestic abuse survivors were struggling to get payments they were entitled to because they found the process so risky.

“Child maintenance is vital for enabling survivors of domestic abuse to separate from their abuser, and build a safe and independent life for themselves and their children,” she said.

“But there is a system-wide failure to recognise that, just because a relationship has ended, it does not mean the abuse has.

"Child maintenance is often used by perpetrators as form of post-separation abuse and financial coercion – by deciding how much, and when, to pay. Many survivors struggle to secure successful payment arrangements – and many consider the risk too great to pursue maintenance at all.

“Women’s Aid calls for the Government to ensure women and children have safe child maintenance arrangements in place by fast-tracking domestic violence survivors to the statutory ‘Collect & Pay’ system, dropping charges for survivors to use the system and ensuring all staff receive specialist training on domestic abuse. The current system is simply not safe for survivors – change is urgently needed.”

Gingerbread chief executive Fiona Weir said the new child maintenance system was not fit for purpose.

“Child maintenance matters. It helps single parents to provide the essentials for their children, yet less than half of single parent families get any child maintenance at all,” she said.

“This makes the role of the CMS crucial. But it’s clear that for the many survivors of domestic abuse who will be turning for the service for help, the CMS is not fit for purpose.”

The warnings about the dangers in the new child support system come amid a backdrop of uncertainty about the future of domestic violence shelters across Britain.

The Government has repeatedly deferred decisions regarding whether specific supported accommodation – including rape crisis centres and women’s refuges – will be included in its housing benefit cap.

The latest estimate reported by The Independent earlier this month suggests that 67 per cent of all domestic violence shelters will close because of the cap.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We are committed to giving children the best start in life and our staff are highly trained to support separated parents in very difficult circumstances. We do all we can to help families stay together but in the small minority of cases where that can’t happen, procedures are put in place to ensure families are protected and can’t be traced.”