The architect of Australia’s acclaimed child maintenance system is so alarmed at Britain’s plans to overhaul the Child Support Agency that he has flown to London to voice his concern.

The new system, which encourages separating couples to reach their own arrangements voluntarily, leaving a pared-down agency to deal with “hard cases”, means that many children will get far less than they deserve from their absent father, he has said.

Patrick Parkinson, who designed the Australian model, said that the decision to scrap the CSA and replace it with a much smaller operation was the result of a “nervous breakdown” among senior politicians after years of technological and administrative disasters, but it was highly flawed.

“There is a great danger that child maintenance in Britain will now be seen as voluntary, that nonresident parents can decide whether or not they want to support their children,” he told The Times. “The second danger is that the resident parent, usually the mother, ends up acquiescing to the first offer made [by the father] on the grounds that at least they will get it.”

In Australia 94 per cent of child maintenance cases are overseen by the CSA, which calculates how much the children are entitled to, although half of parents arrange the transfer of money themselves. In Britain, the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC), which will replace the CSA this year, will be involved only in cases where fathers refuse repeatedly to pay maintenance or regularly default. For everyone else, it will publish a formula suggesting how much absent fathers should pay.

Professor Parkinson, an academic and expert in family law, led the government taskforce into child maintenance in Australia that drew up its system. He said that he understood why ministers and opposition politicians wanted to make the role of the new agency as small as possible.

“You can understand the thinking. The previous system with all the problems and IT disasters made everyone think ‘we’ve got to do it simple’. It has come as a result of a sort of nervous breakdown. Closing down one agency and starting up another to carry out similar functions is a desperate measure by any standards,” he said.

Mothers on benefits will no longer be required to have their maintenance claims decided by C-MEC and, crucially, they will be able to keep the first £40 a week of child maintenance before their benefits are clawed back by the Treasury. However, Professor Parkinson said he believes that £40 a week will soon be regarded as the only sensible amount of money absent fathers should pay, given that the rest will be offset in benefit withdrawal.

“There is no incentive for the father to pay more since he is paying it straight to the Treasury, or for the mother on benefits to try to get more since she isn’t going to get to keep any of it,” he said.

Here and there

In Britain
— 19 per cent of child support cases go through the CSA. Even fewer under the reformed system
— Flat-rate formula suggests that absent fathers pay 10 per cent of salary for one child, 15 per cent for two and 20 per cent for three
— Separating couples encouraged to make own arrangements, with new C-MEC for difficult cases only
— No incentive for fathers to have greater contact with their children within maintenance system
— Conservatives exploring plans for family relationship centres to help separating families to reach agreement

In Australia
— 94 per cent of cases go through child support agency, although in half of cases parents set up transfer of cash privately
— Formula based on income of both parents, based on needs of child, and changes with age
— Agency deducts maintenance from pay packets in 40 per cent of cases
— Discounts for fathers who care for children at least a day a week
— System is backed by network of Family Relationship Centres to help to resolve disputes

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