Gingerbread respond to Minister’s comments about Child Maintenance Reform

Gingerbread continues to push for specialist support for single parents 

Gingerbread has been calling for specialist single-parent work coaches as part their #SupportNotPunish campaign. They say:

"We’re disappointed that the Minister didn’t commit to this, however we welcome the news that steps are being made to improve the support available through Jobcentre Plus. We will be looking at how we can inform what this looks like in practice."

Ms McGovern also said that the child poverty strategy would look at Universal Credit, noting that action on improving the operation of UC was also being looked at as part of a review being led by Work and Pensions Minister Sir Stephen Timms. 

 ‘Negative and bullying’ – single parents describe their experience of Universal Credit 

They continue: "We were enormously grateful to the two single parents who joined us to share their stories with MPs at the meeting. Single parent Ruth described how the lack of effective action from the Child Maintenance Service had resulted in unnecessary financial hardship. "

What single parents need from the Child Poverty Strategy 

Head of Policy and Campaigns at Gingerbread, Sarah Lambert outlined Gingerbread’s priorities for the child poverty strategy. These are:  

• Making sure the level of UC is sufficient, including scrapping the two-child limit 

• Reform of Universal Credit, so that there is genuine help through well-trained and supportive work coaches and a less punitive system, ideally through the scrapping of sanctions, as outlined in our #SupportNotPunish campaign 

• Strengthened flexible working rights 

• An improved system for getting support for childcare 

• Significant reform of the CMS as set out in our #FixTheCMS campaign.