Live running memo 14: Child Maintenance Service signposting process
Updated 12 November 2021
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Introduction
Dear provider and local authority,
The Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) Programme’s approach is to continuously review the ongoing delivery to improve the provision and help more parents who are experiencing relationship conflict. To support this, we will start a small scale trial to explore whether colleagues in Child Maintenance Service (CMS) are able to identify parents who may benefit from this support and the impact this has on the maintenance arrangements these parents make.
Summary and action
From the 14 September 2020 until the 31 March 2021, during interactions with parents who telephone the CMS, colleagues will identify parents experiencing relationship difficulties and signpost them to the RPC regional contact in the relevant geographical region. Not all CMS colleagues will take part in this trial and we expect the number of parents to be signposted to be low (possibly around 20 a week in total). We will monitor the volumes throughout the trial and may adjust the number of CMS colleagues involved in the test to increase the volume of parents signposted if necessary.
To evaluate this trial, we must be able to track parents signposted from Child Maintenance Group (CMG) through the process. To do this a bespoke Unique Identifier must be allocated to each signposted case.
The RPC Regional Contact on receipt of any enquiry from the parents will, as they do now:
- outline the purpose of the programme and explain the end to end RPC process then
- arrange an appointment with a Practitioner who will complete the Referral Stage Questionnaire (RSQ) with the parent
In addition, the supporting Practitioner assisting the parent with the completion of the RSQ must ask all Parents how they found out about RPC.
If the Parent(s) confirms they were informed about RPC by the Child Maintenance Service, the Practitioner must record “CMS Signpost” in the “Additional Notes” field of the RSQ.
The Referral Gateway Team on receipt of all RSQ’s will check the “Additional Notes” field in the RSQ to see if it contains the text “CMS Signpost”
If the “Additional Notes” field does contain the text “CMS Signpost” then when allocating the parent, a Unique Identifier must be prefixed with the letters “CMS” so that the cases can be tracked as cases that have been signposted to the programme by DWP CMS.
This change can be implemented with immediate effect.
Further information and contact details
This process will be reviewed in 1 months’ time.
If you have any queries about this memo please contact your Performance Manager in the first instance.