Maintenance charging concealed within consultation on abolition of CMEC

The arms-length Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission (CMEC) is being scrapped in a move to give Department of Work and Pensions ministers "...  more direct control, responsibility, and accountability over the delivery of child support strategic and operational policy, and the ongoing and future reform of child maintenance." 

A consultation on this change was launched last week.  It consists mainly of a search and replace exercise on existing legislation (for “Commission” substitute “Secretary of State”).  

Slipped in at section 47 are the mention of new powers to charge for assessment and collection of maintenance, including the power to make provision for the charging of fees which are not related to costs. 

The original 1991 Act which established the Child Support Agency included powers to charge fees, although it did offer the safeguard that fees would not be charged to people receiving benefits. 

Full details of the new charging scheme will not be known until subsequent orders are made, but it is revealing that the controversial topic of charging should be slipped out in an otherwise uncontentious bit of secondary legislation.

Responses to this consultation are required by 3rd January 2012.  FNF Scotland suggests that if you do manage to prepare a response before the festive season, it could include the point that charging should not start until the operation of the yet-to-be-named successor to the CSA reaches acceptable standards of performance. 

And if you also wanted to suggest that the new agency should also be responsible to the Scottish Parliament or should be obliged to locate some of its key staff in Scotland, there's no harm in making suggestions.