Arranging child support today and in the 19th century

by Georgina Laragy

Prior to 2008, all lone parents receiving out-of-work benefit in the United Kingdom were forced to engage with the Child Support Agency in order to secure maintenance for their child. Once they had received such support it was then taken into account when calculating their subsequent welfare payments. According to a 2012 report by lone-parent charity Gingerbread, ‘Even though the obligation to use the CSA was removed in 2008, having a CSA arrangement was still almost twice as common as having a private maintenance arrangement (37 per cent compared to 20 per cent). And 43 per cent of single parents on benefit had no maintenance arrangement at all’. (See http://gingerbread.org.uk/uploads/media/17/8361.pdf, p. 6) The system forced those on welfare to engage with the non-caring parent, (largely men, though in a small proportion of cases, women) in order to secure maintenance / support.

The welfare system in the UK is currently undergoing major reform, and earlier this year (2013) the government announced new measures which would see an injection of £20 million aimed at helping families come to maintenance arrangements themselves. To further incentivise private and voluntary arrangements between separated parents, another scheme was introduced yesterday; lone-parents seeking maintenance must now pay a fee of £20 pounds to engage the services of the new statutory body, Child Maintenance Services (which has replaced the Child Support Agency). As well as this fee, should the parents be unable to work out an arrangement voluntarily and the case goes into the ‘collections service’, a further 4% is taken from the amount collected, before it is passed on to the ‘caring parent’ and the child. According to a representative from Gingerbread who spoke on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ programme yesterday (29 July 2013), this amounts to ‘money being taken directly from children’. Gingerbread fears that the choice between paying an upfront fee, which many will struggle to afford, or negotiate with former partners, will result in parents abandoning the system altogether. A single-mother who also spoke on the programme believed that such a measure would only push poor and separated parents ‘further into poverty’. The Minister for Work and Pensions, Steve Webb (speaking on the same programme), believes that this new measure will ‘encourage and enable families to sort things out’. He suggested that seeking the help of the state was a ‘default’ position for most poor families; however, the evidence provided by Gingerbread and described above, suggests that was not really the case (20% used CSA). How will this new measure affect that figure? And how will it affect children?

Social welfare in nineteenth century Belfast was administered under the 1838 Act for the relief of destitute poor in Ireland (1 & 2 Vic. cap. 56); child support came under the remit of that act.

            if any Person shall desert and leave his Wife, or any Child whom such Person             shall be liable to maintain, so that such Wife or Child shall become destitute and be             relieved in the Workhouse of any Union, ever such Person shall, on Conviction             thereof…  Be committed to the Common Gaol or House of Correction, there to be             kept to hard Labour for any Term not exceeding Three Calendar Months.

According to Joseph Robins, ‘the new laws gave no power to the mother to sue the father; and once she left the workhouse the liability of the father ended.’ (Robins, The lost children: a study of charity children in Ireland, 1700-1900, Dublin, 1980, p. 274) In nineteenth century Belfast there were no other means by which poor people could enforce the payment of maintenance without entering the workhouse. And it was in the interest of the local boards of guardians to prosecute those who had deserted spouse and children and who subsequently became a burden on the rates. Successful prosecutions under this law ensured some short- and long-term recompense for the trouble and cost of so doing. The most common offence prosecuted under the Irish poor laws was desertion of children and family. Between 1866 and 1917 54.5 per cent of convictions under the Poor Law Acts were for desertion. Family breakdown was and is both a cause and a consequence of poverty and the result among poorer communities can often be that families, both in nineteenth century Belfast and in 21st century United Kingdom, must seek assistance from charities and the state in order to feed and clothe children.

The UK government is now attempting to push people away from state-reliance and make them more self-reliant in dealing with not only the emotional fall-out from a separation but also with the financial and practical aspects. In theory this does not sound like a bad idea; families can always benefit from anything that improves communication, but the evidence suggests that only a minority of individuals, mostly likely those who had no choice, actually sought the services of the CMS’s predecessor. By charging those who cannot sort out their own affairs in this respect, surely amounts to a punitive approach designed to serve the state’s interests before those of the family, or the children. In this respect it is not unlike the poor laws of the nineteenth century, when families were forced into the workhouse in order to institute proceedings against a parent for maintenance. Like the £20 charge introduced this week, the workhouse was also a deterrent, designed to persuade the poor to sort out their problems on their own. Admittedly, a £20 charge is not the same as giving up one’s home and entering the dour, Victorian institution that was the workhouse but the principle is the same. So, are these ‘reforms’ less reforming and more a regression to an older, more punitive welfare system?

New audio and video material available from our project

As the summer heats up and the 2012-13 academic year draws to a close, we here at the QUB project ‘Poverty and public health in Belfast, 1800-1973’ have been looking over the past seven months and realised that we have some material to share with you which has emerged from the events that we organised earlier this year.

In February we hosted a very successful and interesting workshop entitled ‘Poverty and Welfare in Comparative Urban Contexts’ (February 2013). Two months later we visited the Crumlin Road Gaol and hosted a QUB Impact event, ‘Queen’s Historians go to Gaol’ (April 2013). In order to bring our efforts, and those of our contributors, to a wider audience, we have been getting to grips with the various methods available for disseminating those papers and presentations including blogging, tweeting and facebooking. We have also created a video and some audio files of said presentations.

The ‘Twitter Machine’ as it is becoming fondly known, has been a great resource for this dissemination. On foot of our video which shows Dr Olwen Purdue’s presentation entitled ‘A den of drunkenness, immorality and vice’; the workhouse and the poor in late nineteenth-century Belfast‘ (see below for link) we have received numerous re-tweets and new followers, along with 51 views of the video itself! Now while this might not compare favourably to the almost 2 billion youtube views received by that star of K-Pop Psy with his ‘Gangnam Style’, we are quite happy with Olwen’s own style! And there will be more videos to follow!

So while I am embedded in my office going through the remaining video and audio, I am leaving you with enough links to last a few weeks hopefully.  Below find a link to the Purdue ‘vimeo’ as well as some audio from various experts in Irish and British social history. If you’re curious about the operation of the Irish and English poor laws, eighteenth or nineteenth century philanthropy or 21st Century low-income families, then you will find something of interest here. Please check back soon for more videos and more presentations from the Crumlin Road Gaol event!

Vimeo

Olwen Purdue (QUB) ‘A den of drunkenness, immorality and vice’; the workhouse and the poor in late nineteenth-century Belfast

Audio

LarryGeary (UCC) ‘The best relief the poor can receive is from themselves’: The Society for Promoting the Comforts of the Poor

JanetGreenlees (GCU) The Church of Scotland and the poor: politics and paradoxes, c 1880-1950

VirginiaCrossman (OBU) Some reflections on the urban / rural poverty divide in Ireland 1850-1914

DavidGreen (KCL) ‘It is here that we find the English poor law system in its most complete form’: London and the poor law in the nineteenth century

GraceKelly (QUB) Family life in conditions of low income in Northern Ireland