Press Releases

Please save the date! On Saturday 19th February 2022 we will be holding an online Annual General (AGM). The AGM will be available for signed-up FNF Members to attend. The workshop will be open to everyone who registers to attend and will cover relevant issues to achieving the best shared parenting outcomes for your children. Further details will be communicated at a later date.

If you are not a Member, but would wish to attend the AGM and hear of our progress and plans please consider joining here. It only costs £39 a year (£35 for renewals) or as little as £5 for a month and £4 for monthly renewals.
If your membership has lapsed, please consider re-joining by logging in using your current details and then renew your membership.

 7th December 2021

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'No-Fault' Divorce became law on 6th April 2022

New 'no-fault' divorce laws were enacted on 6th April 2022. On the same day FNF were interviewed by the BBC. The discussion starts at 1:04:10 with our contribution at 1:06:23.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00160c5 (available until 4th May 2022).

At the edges, the new legislation will reduce conflict. However, it is our view that this needs to be just the start of reform of the way family separation works.

The conditions for child arrangements contribute to conflict
- child benefits go to one parent
- so does Child Maintenance even when care is shared
- family courts take too long to resolve things
- allegations of domestic abuse are a pre-condition to receiving legal aid

The motivations that add to attempts at blame and discrediting an ex partner exist in the same way when in comes to children as in relation to divorce. In any case, given that 49% of children are born outside of marriage*, the easing of conflict in divorce does not affect a substantial proportion of parents who are not married.

You can read more about, what is officially called 'The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act (2020)' in the Government's official Press Release: “Blame game” ends as no-fault divorce. 

* Births in England and Wales: summary tables - 2020 dataset - Table 1

16th April 2022

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Seasonal message from Michelle Cook - Director of Operations

The last 6 months have passed by rapidly as I gain more insight into our structures, services and the priorities of our Members and Service Users.  We’re a small organisation, but collectively we have a mighty determination. I’m endlessly impressed with what FNF achieves within limited means.  Our charity has grown organically through hands on experience resulting in a very rich & detailed level of understanding and FNF are now at a peak of knowledge within our sector. Our growth is inevitable.

We aim to put our full effort into increasing our funding over the next 2 years, to increase the reach of FNF services and become more defined as leaders within the field.  We’re working away in the background to streamline our systems and services and I’m confident that we’re very well placed to grow and develop noticeably in 2022. 

It must be said that this is only possible as a result of the unwavering support of our remarkably dedicated volunteers and the generosity of our supporters & patrons.  We look forward to continuing to support anyone who needs us in the new year, and we hope that everyone involved will contribute in any way they can to helping the charity thrive.

What we do as a service is essential and I’m really honored to be a part of this growth. I thank you wholeheartedly for being a part of FNF. 

Michelle

Seasonal message from Michael Lewkowicz - Director of Communications

It has been very helpful to have Michelle join us and contribute with her wealth of experience in governance and operations!

As Michelle says, there will be a real focus next year on growing our income so that we can provide more and better services and campaigns. Even with limited resources, with the support of Members, we are making a real difference, often against the odds. During this year we have re-launched our website and new articles are being added to this every month. Parliamentary briefings, such as the one published in December 2021 on Child Maintenance are not only referring MPs to FNF, but are covering agenda items that we have set such as the unaffordable nature of the assessments made. Several FNF Members have been involved in supporting Cafcass consultations on complaints, on their Learning and Improvement Board and on their Family Forum. The National Audit Office sought our views on the value for money of Child Maintenance. More recently we have been invited to contribute to a review of how the Child Maintenance Service deals and should deal with cases involving allegations or findings of domestic abuse. In January we will be publishing a report on these and many other activities over the last year or so and setting out our priorities going forward. We will also be providing further information on how you can assist in campaigns we will be running.

Both personally and on behalf of our Trustees I would like to your support, without which we would not be here.

We wish you a great Christmas and New Year. Our thoughts are especially with the many children and parents who will not be able to spend this festive time together.

Michael

24th December 2021

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Happy Father's Day 2022

Today we wish all dads a very happy and joyful Father's Day. We know many of you will have been on a terrible journey to be able to mark this special day that is designated to focus on fathers.

For those who are still on that journey and who are unable to see their children today, this is a particularly difficult time. Stay strong and do what you can to stay healthy. Your children will need you that way for when you are re-united. We hear of success stories all the time, even if it takes many years to get there. Celebrate with your parents, do something positive with friends and/or resolve to help us to do something to change the system for the better - to keep people out of courts, to speed up the process and to remove systemic biases throught all areas of fatherhood (see the sample below). Why not resolve to write to your MP, share your story and ask them to make representations to the relevant minister and to meet with us? The same applies if you had a good outcome, but the journey was awful - resolve to help us achieve the changes for all children and parents affected.

Here is a sample of recent stories of dads reunited with their children... even after a long time.

Thomas "Thank you FNF, you helped me when I had no idea what to do and now I see my kids every week."

Carl, says: "The last time I hugged my daughter, she was tiny…… this Easter… we found each other!"

Paul says: "My son and I found each other six years ago when I was 50 and he was 25. I hadn’t known him until then."

Ross: "You can never get those missed years back, but after 15 years of fighting we connected in 2020. And next month she is a bridesmaid at my wedding. To anyone reading NEVER stop fighting"

Michael: "Just happened to me with my son [being reunited] it sure feels nice."

We hear everyday of dads getting positive outcomes, even in within the unfit-for-purpose family justice systems. Hopefully these stories will strengthen your resolve.

Never forget that your children need you now and in the future.

Challenges and Biases Fathers Face

This Father’s Day, as well as sharing the good-news stories, we reflect on some huge disadvantages faced by fathers with many aspects of sex and gender equality not reflecting the diversity of family life today.

The anti-father bias starts at birth
Whereas most fathers now attend the birth of their children, the barriers to their full involvement are high and discriminatory from day one!

The UK has the biggest differential in statutory maternity and paternity leave in the world at 52 to 2 weeks.
• Statutory paternity pay is just £313.32 (£156.66 per week for two weeks).
• For a mother on average income of £28,300 it is £7,956 - a support gap of 96%!
• The UK policy does not offer each parent independent leave and mothers sacrifice theirs in favour of fathers in just 1.6% of cases.
• When Aviva in the UK introduced equal 100% of salary funding for their employees for six months, 99% took it up and 84% for the full six months.

Anti-father bias upon family separation

• Almost all legal aid in private law proceedings goes to mothers, irrespective of the fathers’ income.
• In approximately 90% of cases fathers are classified as 'non-resident parents'.
• The vast majority of fathers in the family justice system do not have access to a lawyer.
• Family court proceedings now take on average almost a year. For those with contested facts almost two years. These are not child-appropriate, or father-appropriate timescales.
• The absence of interim arrangements or early intervention for children means that every year thousands of father’s relationships with their children are irreparably destroyed.
• Some 6,000 applications by fathers for enforcement of orders, made in the interests of children, do not result in enforcement action and lead to the loss of parental relationships.
• 60% of FNF fathers are denied the opportunity to see their children on Father’s Day.
• Even if they spend up to 3½ days a week caring for their children:
  • They do not receive child benefits
  • They are classified as ‘single adults’ by DWP – not even parents, so they do not qualify for any support e.g. housing for their children to stay with them. 
  • They pay child maintenance and don’t receive any, even if they earn substantially less.
• Schools often communicate with mothers and don’t have policies to enable both parents to be registered as contacts when they do not live together.

Three is a public health crisis being caused by the failure of government policy to reflect family life as it is today, the lack of a strategy for separated families and the failure to promote responsible parenting – indeed with outdated policies that have the opposite effect and drive family conflict and the exclusion of fathers from their children’s lives.

19^th June 2022

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House of Commons Publish a Helpful Briefing on Child Maintenance

On 7th December 2021 the House of Commons Library published a new briefing paper on Child Maintenance (CM) calculations Child maintenance: Calculations, variations and income (UK), a 70 page document. The paper helpfully summarises key aspects of the way that CM is calculated and recent data published by CMS and their explanations for the reasons why certain aspects of the calculation were introduced.

FNF are mentioned at the end of this paper as a resource for MPs and their constituents.

One of the more gratifying aspects of this new briefing is the inclusion of a section (on page 47) on 'Poverty, welfare and child maintenance'. We have been lobbying the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) for some time about unaffordable assessments and the lack of information available to MPs on poverty and paying parents. For the first time this briefing includes references to research that shows that paying parents on Universal Credit can experience 'marginal tax rates' that include their CM payments of up to 109%. In other words they are being asked to pay sums they cannot afford and as their income goes up their take-home pay actually decreases so they have a disincentive to increasing their hours or pay and struggle to live.

The briefing also highlights reports on the difficulties of the current CMS scheme as reported by the Government's own statutory advisory body, The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) and of the Centre for Social Justice (FNF contributed to both these reports and FNF Members and service users were involved in the focus group consultation by SSAC).

As well as the interaction with Universal Credit, MPs are briefed on other SSAC (Section 7.5 on page 39) findings such as CM:

• not reflecting the true cost of living of paying parents
• perverse incentives for receiving parents in the way shared parenting calculations work
• failure to reflect income of both parental households
• failure to accurately reflect travel costs, especially when the receiving parent moves away
• difficulties of a high barrier to reviewing CM payments when paying parents' income goes down

The inclusion of these points in this briefing is an important step forward in informing MPs on the difficulties of the current system. We shall be contacting the House of Commons Library about future updates to help MPs further in understanding the current failings of CM. Key information that remain to be covered in this briefing includes:

1. The spread of income of paying parents.
   We know, from FOI data, that the average income of paying parents having DWP deductions for CM from their income or benefits is just £9,200 a year. This should be included in the briefing to MPs as should a better understanding of income of those with arrears.
   
   
2. The briefing also should report on the conclusion of the SSAC report that the government need a proper strategy for separated parents, without which the entire scheme lacks coherence and government departments work against each other e.g. one promoting out-of-court solutions to family conflict whilst DWP often rely on court evidence and have policies that create and escalate conflict between parents.

ACTION: If you are having difficulties with CM payments and are finding the CM service unresponsive, do contact your MP. Please also consider asking them to read this briefing and consider putting forward proposals to review the legislation in the way SSAC proposed. A request to ask your MP to request that the House of Commons Library to address the two points above would also be very helpful. If you are willing to share responses from your MP's please send them to us. Also, if you wish to share your experience on any of these issues for a future Newsletter item, please get in touch - we cannot get involved with CMS in relation your case with CMS, but we can discuss with them the issues that it raises and its wider implications. Please send information on these items to us on admin@fnf.org.uk with CMS in the subject heading.  We will anonymise your details.

 24th December 2021

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