Children: Maintenance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training is provided to Child Maintenance Service caseworkers to ensure fair treatment of non-resident parents for (a) complex or disputed and (b) other cases.
Answered by Andrew Western
All Child Maintenance Service Case Workers are provided with the Decision Making and Welfare of the Child topics during new entrant learning.
These cover the principles of the decision-making process, gathering different types of evidence, applying the balance of probabilities, ensuring impartiality in the decision-making process in relation to resident and non-resident parents, and, where appropriate, the importance of considering the impact on any child who will be affected by the decision.
These principles are reinforced throughout the learning, for example, in deciding the number of nights of care for a shared care decision.
Child Maintenance Service Caseworker learning is standardised to ensure a consistent decision-making process and to allow for transparency if the decision is disputed in the future.
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