DWP warns of fees
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has begun writing to parents who still pay and receive money via the Child Support Agency to highlight the imminent introduction of fees. The Department...
View ArticleCharity calls new child maintenance charges ‘wrong in principle’
Single parent charity Gingerbread has labelled new child maintenance collection charges ‘wrong in principle’. From today, new applicants to CSA successor the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will need...
View ArticleNew child maintenance system begins amid criticism
The government’s new child maintenance system begins today amid continued criticism from a single parent charity. The new Child Maintenance Service (CMS) was brought in to replace the Child Support...
View ArticleWill the new child maintenance system make a difference?
So, the last piece of the government’s plan to overhaul the child maintenance system has been put into place. On Monday the Department for Work and Pensions (‘DWP’) proudly announced that the system...
View ArticleAlarm over drop in maintenance claims
A total of 3,700 fewer parents applied to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) during August than in May, single parent charity Gingerbread has announced. The 38 per cent drop is linked to the...
View ArticleWhat family lawyers were talking about this week…
Family Justice Minister Simon Hughes has promised action on the problem of the growing numbers of litigants in person in our courts, following the legal aid cuts last year. Speaking at the Liberal...
View ArticleWhat family lawyers were talking about this week…
A pretty mixed bag, actually: Cafcass has published its latest figures for care applications and private law demand, for September 2014. In that month Cafcass received a total of 902 care applications,...
View Article2014 review part 2: justice for all
The first four months of the year brought great changes to the family justice system in this country. However, that did not mean that all who were to use the system found the justice they were seeking…...
View ArticleNearly £3 billion in child maintenance classed as ‘uncollectable’
The government has classified £2.9 billon of £3.9 billion in child maintenance arrears as “uncollectable”, Radio 5 Live reports. The arrears relate to family cases handled by the soon-to-be-phased-out...
View ArticleChild Maintenance Service ‘neglecting arrears’ says Gingerbread
Child Support Agency successor organisation the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has not taken the collection of arrears seriously, a charity has claimed. Responding to figures published by the...
View ArticleWill we ever have a child support system that works?
Last week the single parent charity Gingerbread expressed concern about the arrears of child support that have accumulated since the Child Maintenance Service began accepting all new child support...
View ArticleA personal view of the year in family law, part two
As I explained in my last post, this is a very personal view of the last year in family law. I have been through all of the news stories that I have recorded over the year, and picked out the ones that...
View ArticleChild Support Agency ‘has failed to collect £4 billion’
The soon-to-be-disbanded Child Support Agency has failed to collect as much as £4 billion in child maintenance, the single parent charity Gingerbread claims. In a new report entitled Missing...
View ArticleChild Maintenance Service ‘endangers domestic abuse victims’
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) puts survivors of domestic abuse at risk, two charities have claimed. Launched in 2012, the CMS was designed to replace the Child Support Agency. The idea is for...
View ArticleMillions owed to single parents in child maintenance
Single parents in the UK are owed millions of pounds in child maintenance, a new study suggests. Campaign charity Gingerbread claims that as much as £6 million is owed to such parents in West...
View ArticleInternal child abduction, child support and more
A week (or so) in family law I’m going to begin with a case that was actually decided last week, but I failed to mention here in my weekly review last Friday. I did, however, mention it here in this...
View ArticleGovernment promises are ‘not enough’ for single parents
The promises made by the government in this week’s Autumn Statement are not enough to help struggling families, a charity has claimed. Single parent organisation Gingerbread has said that Chancellor of...
View ArticleFamily law in 2016: the bad bits
It is traditional at this time of year to write a review of all that has gone on over the previous twelve months. On this occasion I thought I would try something a little different from the usual...
View ArticleChild maintenance backlog exceeds £3.8 billion
The amount of uncollected child maintenance in Britain now exceeds £3.8 billion, the BBC has claimed. The figure, highlighted on Victoria Derbyshire show, is based on collated government statistics and...
View ArticleLoopholes ‘depriving single parents of child support’
‘Loopholes’ mean too many absent parents are not paying their dues, single parent charity Gingerbread has claimed. In a new report entitled Children Deserve More, Gingerbread insist that recent reforms...
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