In Saturday’s Courier we will reveal the huge amount of money absent parents across Fife and Tayside owe their children.
The staggering amount has led to the Child Support Agency being branded a “total disaster” by a local charity.
The Child Support Agency (CSA) was launched in 1993 to calculate the amount of maintenance a non-resident parent is due and to collect and transfer the money to the parent living with the children.
As of 2012, 1.2m cases were in arrears and 750,000 people had never paid a penny.
The CSA is being replaced this year by the new Child Maintenance Service (CMS), which will encourage splitting parents to reach their own agreement over financial support.
Failure to do so will see the parent left with care of the children charged a fee to use the service in order to pursue the absent partner.
Controversially, resident parents will be charged a £20 application fee if they want their case to be handled by the CMS.
The fee will be waived if the parent declares they are the victim of domestic violence and has reported it to the police or a relevant agency.
In addition, all parents with care including abuse victims will have to pay an ongoing 4% deduction from the money they receive.
Non-resident parents will have to pay a 20% collection charge on top of their payments.
Those who fail to pay once they are in the CMS collection service will face penalties of between £50 and £300.
But charities fear the new arrangement could result in further stress and hardship for the tens of thousands of lone parents across Courier country, the vast majority of whom are women.
For more on this story, see next week’s Courier or try our digital edition.