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23/12/2011
Child Maintenance Survey Commences
The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division (CMED), is carrying out a survey to determine how many effective maintenance agreements are in place to support children across Northern Ireland.
CMED, which is part of the Department for Social Development, promotes and secures effective maintenance arrangements for those children who live apart from one or both parents. At present, no baseline information exists in Northern Ireland to indicate how many effective maintenance arrangements are in place.
Completion of the survey will enable CMED to identify the proportion of families who have a private maintenance arrangement in place or no arrangement at all. CMED will use the results to help them provide better service to parents and ensure children are financially supported.
Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland welcomed the survey and said: “Every parent has a responsibility to provide for their children. Where parents are no longer together it is important to ensure that effective arrangements are in place to provide adequate financial support for the children.
“The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division is charged with promoting financial responsibility among parents for their children and helping them put effective arrangements in place. These can be family based arrangements, court orders or through the statutory scheme administered by CMED. The important part is that the arrangements should be fair to both parents and the child.
“Unfortunately, not every parent lives up to their responsibilities and some children do miss out on financial support from both parents. Information from the survey will enable CMED to understand some of the difficulties and barriers that parents face in setting up child maintenance arrangements, and to improve the support we can provide to parents to help overcome the barriers.”
The initial fieldwork for the survey has been completed and face to face interviews will be carried out with respondents who have agreed to participate. The survey is confidential and no information which could identify respondents will be recorded.
(GK)
CMED, which is part of the Department for Social Development, promotes and secures effective maintenance arrangements for those children who live apart from one or both parents. At present, no baseline information exists in Northern Ireland to indicate how many effective maintenance arrangements are in place.
Completion of the survey will enable CMED to identify the proportion of families who have a private maintenance arrangement in place or no arrangement at all. CMED will use the results to help them provide better service to parents and ensure children are financially supported.
Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland welcomed the survey and said: “Every parent has a responsibility to provide for their children. Where parents are no longer together it is important to ensure that effective arrangements are in place to provide adequate financial support for the children.
“The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division is charged with promoting financial responsibility among parents for their children and helping them put effective arrangements in place. These can be family based arrangements, court orders or through the statutory scheme administered by CMED. The important part is that the arrangements should be fair to both parents and the child.
“Unfortunately, not every parent lives up to their responsibilities and some children do miss out on financial support from both parents. Information from the survey will enable CMED to understand some of the difficulties and barriers that parents face in setting up child maintenance arrangements, and to improve the support we can provide to parents to help overcome the barriers.”
The initial fieldwork for the survey has been completed and face to face interviews will be carried out with respondents who have agreed to participate. The survey is confidential and no information which could identify respondents will be recorded.
(GK)
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