Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
The Department’s system of child maintenance is not designed to protect those subject to domestic...
Recommendation
The Department’s system of child maintenance is not designed to protect those subject to domestic abuse or coercive control. The Department designed the current child maintenance system to emphasise collaboration between parents, with the CMS available as a voluntary safety net that separated parents can choose to use if they decide to. For survivors of domestic abuse, the CMS may be the safest and only way to secure maintenance from their ex-partner. Around three in five parents that apply to CMS report that they or their child had experienced domestic abuse. The Department points to the training and controls it has put in place to protect such parents subject to domestic abuse and coercive control. However, we are deeply concerned by submissions from stakeholders relating to how the CMS fails to provide these parents with appropriate support or consideration for their circumstances, and how the system exacerbates conflict between parents and financial coercion by requiring intervention from the receiving parent before CMS can take action in a case. This leaves the system open to being ‘played’ by parents wishing to exert coercive control over the other parent, including using the child maintenance system to continue to abuse their former partners, for example by withholding payments or access to children. The Department does not investigate why people stop using its services and whether there are any issues of financial or other coercion in such cases. It also knows little about separated parents without any form of arrangement, and therefore, whether some victims of domestic abuse of coercive control are prevented from using the service. Recommendation: The Department should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, outline how it will identify cases which potentially involve domestic abuse or coercive control and adapt its services and communications in response. It should build into its transformation plans: clearer routes for parents to flag and communicate do
Government Response Summary
The department has robust processes and training in place for identifying victims of domestic abuse. They will also assess the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Statutory Guidance and adapt their Transformation Programme to incorporate further support and communications with domestic abuse survivors, with considerations for more comprehensive conversations when cases close.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The department already has robust processes in place for identifying victims of domestic abuse and ensuring they receive the right support. The department has call scripts that ask directly about domestic abuse; mandatory domestic abuse training for all CMS staff; a Complex Needs Toolkit and a Domestic Abuse Plan to guide caseworker responses to domestic abuse victims and survivors. The department also commissioned an independent review of CMS domestic abuse processes in Autumn 2021, which has now completed. The government is currently assessing its recommendations. Furthermore, the department will assess the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Statutory Guidance, once published by the Home Office, to assess implications for ways in which coercive control can be best identified and for best practice with regards to service delivery and communications for domestic abuse survivors. The department is in the process of adapting its Transformation Programme to incorporate further support and communications with domestic abuse survivors into CMS organisational design and throughout the customer journey, which will continue throughout 2023. More comprehensive conversations are being considered to ensure customers are closing cases for the right reasons and are aware they can return to our service. Although the department will not be able to routinely follow-up on closed cases, once cases move from Collect & Pay to Direct Pay parents are given clear communications about what to do if the arrangement is not working through mobile text messages, letters at each annual review and there are prompts on ‘My Child Maintenance Case’.