Read our open letter to the Prime Minister

Open letter to Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer

Dear Prime Minister,

Across the UK, too many children in separated families are missing out on the support they need. For too many families, the Child Maintenance Service (created to ensure financial security after separation) is unreliable and difficult to navigate, delaying payments and leaving families struggling to cover basic living costs.

After two years of research, informed by the lived experiences of single parents, the Transforming Child Maintenance project, a collaboration between One Parent Families Scotland, Fife Gingerbread and IPPR Scotland, has developed a clear plan to reform the system and make it fairer, safer and better for all separated families.

We are calling on the UK Government to:

• Transform the Child Maintenance Service with a universal payment platform for all families and the removal of fees, so it works as a first resort, not a last.

• Provide support outside the CMS so that parents can get the right help at the right time.

• Ensure that the child maintenance formula is fair and up to date, reflecting real living costs.

• Make the social security system work better for separated families, recognising that child maintenance alone is not a reliable anti-poverty tool.

Analysis by IPPR Scotland, published in our joint report Better for Everyone: A New Vision for Child Maintenance, shows that if all children received the maintenance they are entitled to, £2.7 billion would reach around two million children, lifting around 210,000 out of poverty.

Child maintenance must be a central pillar of any strategy to tackle child poverty. Fixing it would transform lives and make the system better for everyone.

Yours sincerely,

Satwat Rehman
Chief Executive, One Parent Families Scotland

Laura Millar
CEO, Fife Gingerbread

Stephen Boyd
Director, IPPR Scotland

Vaila McClure
Head of Communications and External Affairs, Gingerbread