Exclusive: A Third Of Lone Parents Received No Child Maintenance Payments From Ex-Partners In Lockdown
A third of lone parents have received no child maintenance payments at all from their ex-partners during the coronavirus lockdown, a survey has revealed.
The research by the charity Gingerbread, in association with Mumsnet, found that three quarters of single parents had to cut back on food spending during the pandemic because their payments had been reduced.
The study of 1,357 parents, shared exclusively with HuffPost UK, also shows that only 16% received the full amount of maintenance they were due each month - and on average are owed more than £9,000 in back payments.
And some 86% said that the failures of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) - run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) - had effectively allowed their ex-partner to “financially control or abuse them”.
68% say the amounts of maintenance they receive via the CMS are unpredictable and irregular, with many lone parents relying on charities or foodbanks to survive.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds described the findings as “unacceptable”.
“We should not be in situation where single parents are forced to cut back on food, clothes and activities for their kids,” he said.
“At the start of this crisis the government didn’t know how many child support arrangements had been varied and these findings clearly show the situation has not improved. The government must urgently get a grip and ensure parents who owe child maintenance pay their fair share.”
The findings will fuel calls for the government to step in to provide emergency support for lone parents who are suffering shortfalls in income because absent partners have not kept up their payments.
Many lone parents feel they have been forgotten by the government during the crisis, despite billions being spent on furlough job support or other schemes. Cash has been radically cut or disappeared completely almost overnight after lockdown, some parents say.
The CMS, which replaced the Child Support Agency under the...
