{"id":85827,"date":"2017-10-28T23:15:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T23:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=8c874db6b4a67131d417d0c89174bd52"},"modified":"2017-10-28T23:15:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T23:15:05","slug":"press-release-clampdown-on-child-maintenance-cheats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=85827","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Clampdown on child maintenance cheats"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>If a parent owes child maintenance, deductions to recover that debt can currently only be made from a bank or building society account held solely by them. So a small minority of parents are cheating their way out of supporting their children by putting their money into a joint account with a partner.<\/p>\n<p>New laws will be brought in to allow deductions to be made from joint accounts in order to recover child maintenance arrears.<\/p>\n<p>It is believed closing this loophole could stop a number of parents getting away with not paying their child maintenance each year \u2013 leading to more than \u00a3390,000 additional child maintenance being collected.<\/p>\n<p>Minister for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance Caroline Dinenage said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Our priority is for children to get the support they need. Only a small minority of parents try to cheat their way out of paying towards their children and this new power will be another tool to tackle those who do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">The government\u2019s response to a public consultation on joint account deductions has been published today. This sets out how deduction orders against joint accounts will work and the safeguards that will be in place to protect the other holder of the joint account.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a deduction order only being imposed on a joint account when the paying parent does not have their own account, or there is not enough money in their own account<\/li>\n<li>only funds belonging to the paying parent being targeted, as before a deduction order is made on a joint account, data on that bank account will be collected and bank statements examined to establish which money in the account belongs to the paying parent<\/li>\n<li>existing safeguards already in place for deduction orders for child maintenance will apply to this new power, including the maximum deduction rate on regular orders being set at 40% of the paying parent\u2019s weekly income<\/li>\n<li>both account holders will be given the right to make their case before a deduction order is made<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The new power will come into effect early next year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"call-to-action\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/child-maintenance-deduction-orders-against-joint-accounts\">Read the consultation response<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 id=\"contact-press-office\">Contact Press Office<\/h2>\n<p>Media enquiries for this press release \u2013 020 3267 5130<\/p>\n<div class=\"contact postal-address\" id=\"contact_827\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h3>Press Office<\/h3>\n<div class=\"vcard contact-inner\">\n<p class=\"adr\">\n<span class=\"street-address\">Caxton House<br \/>\n<br \/>\nTothill Street<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"locality\">London<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"postal-code\">SW1H 9NA<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"email-url-number\">\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">London Press Office (national media and London area enquiries only \u2013 not questions about personal claims)<\/span><br \/>\n              020 3267 5144\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Out-of-hours (journalists only)<\/span><br \/>\n              076 59 108 883\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">England and Wales (local media enquiries)<\/span><br \/>\n              029 20 586 then 097 or 098 or 099\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Scotland (local media enquiries)<\/span><br \/>\n              0131 310 1122\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Follow DWP on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Twitter \u2013 <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/dwppressoffice\">www.twitter.com\/dwppressoffice<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>Facebook \u2013 <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dwp\">www.facebook.com\/dwp<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>LinkedIn \u2013 <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dwp\">www.linkedin.com\/company\/dwp<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>YouTube \u2013 <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/dwp\">www.youtube.com\/dwp<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New powers to stop parents avoiding paying child maintenance that they owe have been announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}