From today single parents on benefit have to decide whether to continue receiving child maintenance from the Child Support Agency, make private arrangements with the child's father or do without child maintenance.
One Parent Families/ Gingerbread, which provides support for single parent families, said research from the National Centre for Social Research showed that up to one in four single parents on benefit might stop using the Child Support Agency after the reforms are introduced. The reforms are designed to simplify the benefits system. The charity said it supported the move towards voluntary arrangements for those parents who can come to a fair and sustainable agreement, but feared "the Government may be too keen to reduce the numbers of poor families using the Child Support Agency, without considering whether the children involved will get the child maintenance they need."
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