Led by a new Commissioner for Child Maintenance, C-MEC aims to deliver a simpler and more effective way of assessing, collecting and enforcing child maintenance, according to the proposals set out in the Government's White Paper last week.
Work and pensions secretary John Hutton said, 'Its main focus will be on enforcing maintenance where parents cannot agree. But in future, we will do all we can to help parents reach their own agreements.
'Our proposals to get visibly tougher on enforcement send out a clear signal that non-payment of maintenance will not be tolerated.'
Current position The CSA was launched in April 1993 but has since gained a reputation as a bureaucratic scandal. It has been inundated by complaints - more than 1,000 in the first year alone - both from the parents with care who were not receiving money from their former partners, and from absent parents saying their maintenance payments were set too high.
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