Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance and training is provided by his Department for staff administering the child maintenance scheme on working with parents who have been victims of domestic violence.

When a client first makes a call to the Child Maintenance Options service they have the opportunity to declare if they have experienced domestic violence which allows us to understand whether or not it is appropriate to waive the £20 application fee. This information will be passed to the Child Maintenance Service Applications Caseworker who will use subtle probing questions to gather further information.

Child Maintenance Caseworkers and Child Maintenance Options agents receive a significant amount of behavioural training around managing sensitive and difficult client interactions that will equip them to deal with clients professionally and empathetically. This training is not specifically related to domestic violence, however following recent feedback we are engaging with stakeholders to develop the enhanced learning packages to include this.