CYP Now - Child Maintenance Service should be re-designed to meet the needs of children and families

There is an endless stream of data to support the need for targeted specialist support and advocacy for lone parent families, and there is no doubt they are a particularly vulnerable and diverse group, recognised as a priority group in the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan.

Laura Millar is strategic manager of Fife Gingerbread. Picture: Fife Gingerbread

The UK’s Child Maintenance Service (CMS) was designed to promote family-based arrangements and reduce the ‘burden’ on the state to intervene.

However, there is a wealth of research and evidence highlighting the failures of an existing system that, in too many cases, fails to meet the needs of families.

Child maintenance is overlooked as a lever in the national mission to tackle child poverty. All too often we see broad, far-reaching societal measures to tackle poverty, with the hope that this will ‘trickle down’ to support key family groups. However, if we are to meet child poverty targets, we must invest in significant targeted interventions such as addressing the failing CMS.

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