Written evidence to be reported to the House
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
12:00 pm
Janet Allbeson: There is a balance to be struck between the operational considerations—what is workable from the point of view of CMEC—and what is affordable from the points of view of the NRP and the parent with care. Looking at the Government’s response to the White Paper consultation, my reading is that operational considerations have determined the 25 per cent. amount. Issues about affordability have not really played a big part. It is about how many cases, pragmatically, CMEC thinks that it can reassess.
The figure needs to be kept under review because One Parent Families has no interest in a system where non-resident parents feel that they have a legitimate grievance about the amount. This system can work only if the public back it. We want non-resident parents to be able to afford their maintenance. We do not want them to become martyrs; that is not in anyone’s interests. It has to be a system that the public back as fair, so the 25 per cent. figure needs to be watched.
One also has to recognise that income changes are not the only changes of circumstance. Income changes are not the only things that bedevil tax credits. Other things change in family circumstances. Relationship breakdown is a time of enormous flux: people re-partner, there are new babies, teenage children move between households. All those changes cause reassessment so I would urge a lot of care to be taken in bottoming out the changes of circumstances with what is the quite volatile group of separated families.