Re Polly Toynbee’s article (Here’s one way to slash Britain’s rate of child poverty: stop dithering and make all fathers pay what’s due, 29 November), I was a liable relatives officer in the DWP for a number of years – the arrangement predated the Child Support Agency and was much more hands-on.
In this role, I prosecuted absent fathers (and occasionally mothers) for failing to maintain their children. Later, as a magistrate in the family court, I frequently enforced maintenance orders. The frustration was that many fathers leave one family and immediately start another. Typically this means that there are insufficient funds to support both, and it’s often the first family who suffer most.
