Child support changes ready to go

Simplification of the child support agency, introducing flat rate payments, is to be implemented four years after it was first announced, the government said yesterday.

The changes - first trailed in 1999 - will be introduced next month. They are meant to bring transparency and enforceability to a system that has been the source of hundreds of thousands of complaints from parents who believed they had been unfairly treated.

The new system will end the complex structure introduced by the Tories in 1995, and replace it with a simple calculation based on a flat rate percentage of income.

Non-resident parents earning between £200 and £2,000 a week will pay 15% of their income for one child, 20% for two, and 25% for three or more children. Absent parents earningless than £100 a week will pay £5 a week. A sliding scale will cover those earning between £100 and £200.

The changes were due to come in a year ago, but were delayed by a new computer system.

Andrew Smith, the work and pensions secretary, admitted that the government would be paying 7% more than it had expected for the new system, but he defended the delay.

"Implementation of the new IT system is key to bringing in the much needed child support scheme with its better, fairer, simpler system of calculating maintenance."

The National Council for One Parent Families stressed the need for better enforcement. Kate Green, the charity's director, said: "Under the current system, only 31% of one parent families are receiving the child maintenance they are entitled to. Lone parents will be looking to the government to actually deliver the fair and efficient payment system they were promised."

The new system will apply to all new cases from the beginning of next month. Existing cases will be phased on to the new rates once ministers are confident the system is working. Mr Smith refused a request from Frank Field, former social security minister, who proposed simplification, to compensate those whose appeals for reassessment had been put on hold.