Kids aren’t free The child maintenance arrangements of single parents on benefit in 2012 Caroline Bryson, Amy Skipp, Janet Allbeson, Eloise Poole, Eleanor Ireland & Vicky Marsh Authors Contents Acknowledgements 4 Caroline Bryson is a partner at Bryson Purdon Social Research. Along with Eleanor Ireland, she was a co-author of a Department for Work and Pensions research report ‘Relationship Executive Summary 5 Breakdown and Child Support Study’ (2008) which analysed the experiences and views of separated parents in relation to child maintenance. On the current project, Caroline was involved in the design and reporting of both the quantitative and qualitative elements. 1 Introduction 17 For the duration of the project, Amy Skipp was the Research Officer at Gingerbread, 2 The Policies 23 the national charity for single parents. Gingerbread oversaw all elements of the design, implementation and reporting and led the qualitative element. Amy is now a qualitative 3 Maintenance receipt in 2007 and 2012 33 Research Director in the Children and Young People Team at NatCen Social Research. 4 Maintenance levels and the effect on income 43 Janet Allbeson is the Senior Policy Advisor at Gingerbread, specialising in child maintenance 5 Profile of single parents on benefit 57 issues. She has led the policy input for this research as well as advising on project design and reporting. 6 Using the CSA 67 Eloise Poole and Eleanor Ireland are in the Children and Young People Team at NatCen Social 7 Private arrangements 85 Research, which led the quantitative aspects of the project. Eloise is a mixed methods Senior Researcher and Eleanor is a mixed methods Research Director. They were co-authors of the 8 Having no arrangement 101 Child Maintenance Options research for the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission. 9 Conclusions 113 Vicky Marsh was a senior statistician at NatCen Social Research. She is now working with the Open University. Appendices Bryson Purdon Social Research LLP (BPSR) is an independent research partnership between Caroline Bryson and Susan Purdon, specialising in quantitative survey methods. As well as Appendix A 125 providing consultancy and advice on survey and evaluation design, BPSR collaborates with a range of survey organisations, academics and policy interest groups to conduct surveys and Appendix B 157 evaluations of government policies and programmes. For more information see www.bpsr.co.uk Appendix C 161 Gingerbread is the national charity working with single parent families. It provides expert information and advice, along with membership and training opportunities, to single parents and their families, and campaigns against poverty, disadvantage and stigma to provide fair and equal treatment and opportunity for them. Find out more at www.gingerbread.org.uk NatCen Social Research is an independent, not for profit organisation. We believe that social research has the power to make life better. By really understanding the complexity of people’s lives and what they think about the issues that affect them, we give the public a powerful and influential role in shaping decisions and services that can make a difference to everyone. Find out about the work we do by visiting www.natcen.ac.uk About the Nuffield Foundation The Nuffield Foundation is an endowed charitable trust that aims to improve social well-being in the widest sense. It funds research and innovation in education and social policy and also works to build capacity in education, science and social science research. The Nuffield Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation. More information is available at www.nuffieldfoundation.org 2 3 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the support and involvement of many different people and the funding provided by the Nuffield Foundation. We are especially grateful for the understanding and commitment shown by the Nuffield Foundation’s Board of Trustees and the unwavering support and expert insight given by Sharon Witherspoon. We are also grateful for the support and guidance of Teresa Williams and Frances Bright, in particular for their help in the latter stages of this report’s production. Throughout the project we have turned to the expertise of our Advisory Group, who provided invaluable substantive and methodological guidance: Professor Gillian Douglas Executive Summary (Cardiff University), Alison Garnham (CPAG), Dr Tess Ridge (Bath University), Dr Christine Skinner (University of York), Jean Smith (ScoopAid) and Professor Nick Wikeley (University of Southampton). Additional thanks are extended to Professor Steve McKay (University of Birmingham) who provided insightful comments on a final draft of the full report. We are also grateful to the various single parents who attended our Advisory Group and spoke about their experiences and their understanding of our findings as the project developed. We would like to thank DWP for granting us permission to carry out secondary analysis of the 2007 Relationship Breakdown and Child Support survey data. Clarification of data and previous policies was provided by DWP statisticians, especially the Child Maintenance Analysis team past and present, and by Duncan Gilchrist who provided expert insight. There have been many team members involved at all of the authors’ organisations: from Gingerbread we would especially like to thank Caroline Davey, Fiona Weir and the Communications team for all of their help and input; from NatCen Social Research we are grateful to Jane O’Brien, Svetlana Speight and Matt Barnes; and from BPSR, Susan Purdon for her methodological advice on the sample design. Alice Reeves provided invaluable input into the qualitative phase of the research, interviewing parents, coding and charting data, and feeding into our reporting of the data. We are grateful to the team in the NatCen Social Research Multimode Unit who showed sensitivity and perseverance in contacting and interviewing our respondents, as well as Helen Kirby who was similarly efficient in dealing with all of our transcription. We also thank the TNS- RI Omnibus team. Finally we must thank the hundreds of single parents on benefit who took the time to answer our questions about the arrangements they have in place with their child’s other parent. We appreciate that such issues are not always easy to recall and discuss with strangers, and yet these single parents did exactly that. We are incredibly grateful for the time these parents all gave to this project. 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In 2008, the requirement for single parents claiming out-of-work benefits to set up maintenance Context arrangements using the Child Support Agency (CSA) was lifted. In 2010, a further policy change meant that single parents on benefit could keep any maintenance given to them without it affecting the state benefits they received. Three quarters of a million single parent families in the UK are supported by out-of-work means- tested benefits.1 They are among the poorest families in the UK. With the exception of bereaved This study provides the first up-to-date picture of the maintenance situations of single parents parents, all these families are entitled to seek regular financial support (child maintenance) from receiving benefit since these two policy changes. the child’s other parent (the non-resident parent), in addition to their benefits. However, only a third of these families actually receive any maintenance. Key findings In 2008 and 2010, two changes to child maintenance policy2 were introduced which affected single parents on out-of-work benefits:3 • Prior to the 2008 changes, only a quarter (24 per cent) of single parents who received out-of-work benefits also received any maintenance. By 2012, this had increased to one third (36 per cent). • No longer compulsory to use the CSA: Since the introduction of the CSA in 1993, there had been an obligation on the part of single parents on benefit to seek maintenance from the • Pre-2008, the maximum amount that parents receiving maintenance could be better off (after non-resident parent via the CSA.4 In 2008 this obligation was removed, allowing families to a reduction in their benefits) was £10 per week. By 2012, the average amount of maintenance make private arrangements or have no arrangements at all. received by single parents on benefit was £23 per week. • No longer a benefit reduction to take account of maintenance: Also since 1993, single parents’ • In 2012, for one in five (19 per cent) of these parents receiving maintenance, their maintenance means-tested benefits had been reduced in line with the maintenance that they received. Those lifted them out of poverty. entering the CSA in the early days lost their benefit pound for pound against any maintenance they received. From 2003, new CSA applicants were allowed to receive £10 in maintenance per • Even though the obligation to use the CSA was removed in 2008, having a CSA arrangement week before it began to affect their benefit payments. In 2008 this ‘maintenance disregard’ was was still almost twice as common as having a private maintenance arrangement (37 per cent raised to £20 for everyone. Finally from 2010, all parents were allowed to keep all maintenance compared to 20 per cent). And 43 per cent of single parents on benefit had no maintenance received without a subsequent reduction in their state benefits (sometimes referred to as arrangement at all. a ‘full disregard’). That is, the benefits calculation now completely ignores or disregards any maintenance received. • Private arrangements appear to be difficult to sustain over time. Although four in ten (40 per cent) single parents on benefit had or had tried to have a private arrangement at some point, half had since moved to having a CSA arrangement or no arrangement at all. Lessons for the redesign of the child maintenance system The government is currently reforming the child maintenance system with the aim of supporting greater numbers of separated parents to make their own maintenance arrangements.