Child support crackdown

Record £900m is secured from parents but ‘too many still try to avoid payments’

A RECORD £900million has been secured in child support this year with children lifted out of poverty and parents forced to accept their responsibilities.

More than 730,000 children are benefiting from support secured by the Child Maintenance Service.

The latest annual figures also show that the payments lifted more than 100,000 children out of absolute poverty in 2017-18.

More than eight out of 10 of the youngsters who are helped through the support payments are from single-parent families.

Work and Pensions minister Baroness

Stedman-scott said: “The £900million retrieved is a huge sum of money and behind that number are hundreds of thousands of children finally getting the support they need.

“I see too many cases of parents going to great lengths to avoid paying what they owe, too often leaving their children in poverty.”

CMS investigators can deduct cash directly from earnings and seize funds owed when requests for payments are repeatedly refused. The Department for Work and Pensions points to the example of a father who earned more than £150,000 a year but refused to support his child.

Despite being named on the birth certificate, he ignored requests for payments, denied being the child’s father and backed out of a DNA test he had initially asked for.

It was only when he faced a “forced sale” action on a property he owned that he accepted his responsibilities.

The DWP states: “While lots of families are able to sort out financial support for their children themselves, in far too many cases liars and fraudsters will do all they can to wriggle out of their responsibilities.”

Last-resort sanctions include sending non-payers to prison or banning them from holding a driving licence or passport.

However, with many parents suffering a loss of income due to the pandemic, the CMS has acted to speed up the process in which it reviews cases to see whether the amount paid should be reduced.