Nick Woodall

Why the governemnt has got it right on child maintenance reform (Tue, 24 Jan 2012)
As the Welfare Reform Bill makes its way through the House of Lords, the controversy surrounding those elements relating to the proposed reforms of the child maintenance system shows no sign of abating either inside or outside Parliament. The campaign against the changes has been spearheaded by organisations as diverse as the single parent lobby [...]
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How the ‘runaway dads’ message hinders the Coalition’s family policy aspirations (Fri, 01 Jul 2011)
One of the most noticeable and defining features of the Coalition Government has been its focus on family and its recognition of the importance of fathers to children. David Cameron’s Father’s Day comments about ‘runaway dads’, therefore, come at a very interesting time as the Administration begins to look at how it will translate aspiration [...]
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Why I support the proposed child maintenance reforms (Sat, 02 Apr 2011)
The Government is currently consulting on proposed changes to the child maintenance system. The Green Paper, Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance, builds on changes that came about under the previous Government who introduced the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. At the heart of the proposed reforms is a [...]
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Welfare Reform Bill Public Bill Committees, 24 March 2011 (oral evidence) (Tue, 29 Mar 2011)
Stephen Timms (East Ham, Labour): I would like to ask about provision for support for child care costs. We do not yet know how the Government propose child care costs will be supported in future. What do you think the arrangements should be? Should there be support for people who work less than 16 hours [...]
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Norway’s paternal quota (Fri, 24 Dec 2010)
A few months ago, I wrote about how Margaret Hodge had argued that increasing paternity leave was pointless because fathers just didn’t bother taking it. I’m currently preparing a paper on different approaches to supporting fathers’ involvement in their children’s early lives in Norway and Germany. The Norwegian experience shows just how successful the right [...]
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Extending the support and information available to parents (Sun, 14 Nov 2010)
In 2006, David Henshaw was asked to lead a redesign of the child support system. His report formed the basis of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 and the Child Maintenance Act (Northern Ireland) 2008. In his report, he made a number of significant recommendations. Firstly, he noted that: Parents who are able [...]
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Time for a shift in thinking (Thu, 30 Sep 2010)
As the Family Justice Review closes for evidence, I was struck by two conflicting articles. The first was in direct relation to the Review and appeared in The Guardian. It said that “there is growing evidence that family law has spectacularly failed to keep up with the changing role of men within the home and [...]
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Increasing the take up of paternity leave (Tue, 07 Sep 2010)
I remember, a few years back, the then Children’s Minister, Margaret Hodge, arguing that it was pointless increasing paternity leave because fathers just didn’t bother taking it. Clearly, it hadn’t occurred to her that it in a world that judges men by their commitment to work, it might be difficult for men to put family [...]
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More statistics, same old fog (Mon, 26 Jul 2010)
Single parent organisation Gingerbread’s latest broadside against the Child Maintenance Commission and (so-called) non resident parents has seen press releases in every constituency in the UK highlighting, what it claims to be, the amount of maintenance owed to parents. It claims that, nationally, £3,761 million was owed in child maintenance arrears as of March 2010. [...]
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Child maintenance and financial responsibility (Thu, 08 Jul 2010)
Publication today of a DWP study of child maintenance arrangements raises some interesting and rarely discussed questions about the financial responsibility of parents towards their children after separation. Findings from a study of child maintenance arrangements, a survey of 926 families with a child maintenance interest was undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research [...]
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