2013-05-21T14:29:35-04:00 Catherine McKinnell http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=catherine-mckinnell Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Catherine McKinnell Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2421726 2013-01-06T19:00:00-05:00 2013-03-08T05:12:01-05:00

Catherine McKinnell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-mckinnell/
Today, as the reality of that announcement bites for over a million families, it's clearer than ever that David Cameron and George Osborne failed to think this policy through.

First, it is turning out to be a costly administrative nightmare. HMRC has had to deploy more staff on making the child benefit changes than it employs in its 'offshore co-ordination unit' and 'affluence unit' combined to tackle tax evasion and avoidance by wealthy people.

Treasury minister David Gauke complacently claims everything is going smoothly, but around 300,000 families have still not been notified about the change. And just 200,000 families have opted not to receive child benefit, meaning around one million families may now get a nasty shock when they face having it clawed back through complicated self-assessment tax returns at the end of the year.

New mums who are no longer eligible for child benefit are being advised to continue registering to claim it and then immediately opt-out. If parents aren't aware they still need to register, whether or not they are now eligible, they face losing national insurance pension credits and so being worse off when they retire.

Second, it is perverse and unfair. Single earner families on £50,000 will have their child benefit cut while some couples earning as much as £100,000 keep all of theirs. Meanwhile, those on incomes over £150,000 are actually getting a tax cut - worth an average of £107,000 for 8,000 millionaires.

Of course it's not only families seeing their child benefit taken away who are being hit by this government. Millions of working families on modest and low incomes have already seen their child benefit and tax credits frozen and this week the government will push through plans for real terms cuts in this support over the next three years.

As House of Commons Library research commissioned by the shadow equalities minister Yvette Cooper shows, women are bearing the brunt of these changes. 98% of those hit by today's child benefit change are women, and two thirds of the losers from the overall cuts to tax credits and benefits are also women.

The government can no longer claim we are all in this together when millions of striving families are paying the price for David Cameron and George Osborne's economic failure, while millionaires get a tax cut.

If the government wants the highest earners to pay their fair share, they should cancel the top rate tax cut for people earning over £150,000 this April. And if they really want to get the benefits bill down, they should start getting our economy moving again and help get people who are long-term unemployed back to work.

That's what Labour's compulsory jobs guarantee would do. It's a costed plan to give every adult out of work for two years or more a job, which they will have to take up or lose their benefits.

But instead of welfare reform that is tough, fair and that works, David Cameron and George Osborne are pressing ahead with a chaotic, unfair and perverse policy. And once again it is striving families who are paying the price.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1260153 2012-02-07T19:00:00-05:00 2012-11-05T10:50:14-05:00

Catherine McKinnell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-mckinnell/
Clearly there are few who would argue with the principle, borne out no less by the majority of separating parents who manage to make successful shared arrangements for the care of their offspring. Sadly, for the 10% that can't, lengthy and potentially damaging family court proceedings too often ensue.

It is therefore a brave decision by the government to go against the long deliberated recommendation of the Family Justice Review for no change in the law on shared parenting. The risks of doing so should not be underestimated.

The government is right to give careful consideration to the 'difficult task' in hand. Any room for doubt over what constitutes an 'ongoing' or a 'meaningful' relationship will be argued over - potentially at great length - in court. The government says it does not intend to create a presumption of shared time, which would present great difficulties for parents on a practical level, but it is not clear how this can be avoided.

The Australian family justice system has been besieged by delay since the introduction of a presumption of shared parenting. The less frequently cited experience in Sweden is also worthy of note. They introduced shared parenting (or 'alternating parenting') into the law in 1998 only to have to change it seven years later due to concerns that joint custody was being ordered where it was not in the best interests of the child.

Here in the UK, case law already dictates that the starting point for a judge in any new case is that a child should have contact with both parents, unless it would not be in their best interests. The paramountcy of the child's welfare in the law enables judges to examine and reach a decision on what's best for the child in each individual case and is a principle that should not be tampered with lightly. In addition, roughly 45% of residence orders are made in favour of the father, which dispels the popular impression that judges always rule in favour of the mother.

One school of thought, therefore, is that rather than seeking to legislate, we wait for, and encourage, the societal shift towards parents sharing their child's care from birth through parenting support and early intervention both pre- and post-birth. The logical consequence will be post separation arrangements that mirror those already in place. This has been the experience in Sweden, where even with the legal presumption removed, 95% of parents now arrive at their own shared parenting arrangements.

This shift could also be encouraged by educating new parents to consider the care of their children if they separated and about the impact of ongoing conflict - not exactly ideal world stuff, but clearly needed given the numbers of parents that separate. The recommendations relating to this within the review fortunately appear to have taken on board.

Any change in the law should not be heralded as a panacea for fathers. It would only affect the small minority of parents who can't make their own arrangements, most of these being the most intractable cases. They may be intensely hostile towards one another on top of a whole range of other possible problems. Fighting hard in court simply lengthens the proceedings, increasing the potential for further delay. And all this could then simply result in the court making an order that they will never follow, exposing the child to ongoing conflict and possible harm, the only recourse being to return to court for a second round.

Catastrophically, all this will coincide with the removal of legal aid. With diminishing support for legal costs and increasingly squeezed household finances, many more parents will be in court without a lawyer. It is well-known that litigants-in-person cause additional delay, or worse still, the increasingly common scenario where a parent representing him or herself is pitched against a lawyered-up opponent. This is wholly inadequate given the importance of the matters at stake.

The government is clearly embarking upon an ambitious project in seeking to change the law in this area but the priority with any reform has to be to reduce delay and with it harm to the child. The stakes are high, and the pitfalls great, as let's not forget - when it comes to decisions that affect children, any repercussions will not only be felt today, but potentially also for many years to come. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1014327 2011-10-16T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-16T05:12:01-05:00

Catherine McKinnell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-mckinnell/
Yet - almost 180 years after slavery was abolished - there is one form of trade that is still thriving in austerity Britain: the modern-day slavery that is the trafficking of human beings.

October 18th marks the UK's second Anti-Slavery Day in an attempt to raise awareness of this heinous and hidden crime.

The sheer number of children being brought illegally into the country is deeply concerning. Figures from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre show an average of 300 children are trafficked into the UK per year. But it is the purposes for which they are brought that cause the most alarm. These include sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, benefit fraud, cannabis farming, street begging, theft and shoplifting. And a recent and sinister BBC report suggested at least 400 African children have been abducted and trafficked to the UK in the last four years, allegedly for witchcraft purposes.

Children identified as victims of trafficking in the UK are taken into local authority care, but as The Observer reported earlier this year, a disturbing number of these children simply go missing - often permanently, with many falling into the clutches of their abusers again.

That's why ECPAT UK has been working alongside The Body Shop (and indeed politicians from all parties) to campaign for the Government to establish a proper system of guardianship for the children who are victims of this appalling crime - delivering a 730,000-strong petition on the issue to Downing Street in May.

A guardian appointed to every victim would ensure that they get the right care, accommodation, education, healthcare and language support, and of particular importance, that the child has access to legal representation. This proposal is backed by the UN, and the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. It is also a requirement of Article 16 of the new EU Directive on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Protecting Victims, which the Coalition finally agreed to opt-in to in March.

Sadly, Ministers disagree - repeatedly arguing that Section 11 of the 2004 Children Act gives local authorities a statutory duty to ensure that they safeguard and promote the welfare of all children. Yet, this duty clearly isn't working, and how would Ministers know anyway? The Children's Minister Tim Loughton recently indicated in answer to a parliamentary question that the Government has no records of how many child trafficking victims are currently in care, or how many may have gone missing.

A proper system of guardianship would also help to increase the dismally low prosecution rate for trafficking offences against children - providing victims with the support they need through the prosecution process. But, the Attorney General - responsible for the CPS - made it quite clear in the Commons recently that the matter was outside of his remit. More worryingly, the CPS appears unable to track its own progress on the issue as it has admitted it 'has no records to identify how many prosecutions and convictions there have been of cases involving allegations of trafficking children'.

Despite the Government's attempts to take human trafficking seriously, all of this displays a worrying lack of joined-up thinking on the issue. What better way for Ministers to demonstrate they really are serious about tackling this growing problem - and indeed to mark Anti-Slavery Day 2011 - than to agree to establish a proper system of guardianship for child trafficking victims? It would not only change the lives of those vulnerable children, but also ensure that Wilberforce can rest in peace.]]>