Looking at 12 types of legal and social welfare problems faced by single parents - including debt, contact, benefits and child maintenance - depending on the problem-type, between one quarter and a half of single parents surveyed for the report found it either difficult or impossible to get the necessary help. Forty one per cent of respondents had wanted face-to-face advice but had been unable to find it; almost a third (32%) wanted telephone advice but could not get it. Legal aid problems prevented 12% from getting help with their problems. Benefits, contact and child support problems were most likely to give rise to these access difficulties.
A third of lone parents surveyed (33%) had significant problems with benefits, 42% had significant contact problems, 32% had significant violence or harassment problems and 32% significant debt problems. Crucially, problems usually came in clusters and often lasted for a long time - often over a year.
Many lone parents with significant problems did not seek help with some problems, suggesting they did not know they could get help and many wanted help but could not find what they needed. This led to fewer than half of lone parents with a significant problem of any particular type achieving some level of access to help - assistance with divorce being the only real exception. Thirty four per cent of respondents found it impossible to get access to help with benefits, 28% found it impossible to get help with CSA problems, 25% problems with the family home. Just over a fifth (21%) found it impossible to get help with contact/residence problems.
Launching the report today, One Parent Families called for a new, joined-up strategy on advice provision to link family law and social welfare provision together. More funding for advice on social welfare problems and a new, joined-up approach to funding of advice was also crucial, the charity said: the current fragmentation of funding streams across government is resulting in inadequate provision in areas of greatest need, in spite of the nationwide coverage of the Community Legal Service's Partnerships.
Director of One Parent Families Kate Green said: "Legal aid advice provision is currently targeted at relationship breakdown but as our study shows, many lone parents are grappling alone with issues around benefits, debt and contact, well beyond the initial crisis of separation. For some the problems go on and on and yet they have little idea where to turn. Particularly in light of its child poverty reduction targets and of its social inclusion aims, the Government should now take action to increase funding for advice provision to give proper weight to social welfare law. When parents have persistent problems with debt or benefits or housing, it is likely to have a serious impact on children's lives. The research confirms that lots of single parents do not see a solicitor even for problems within traditional family law so we are concerned about the focus on solicitors in the planning of advice provision and the emphasis on them as the prime entry point to broader sources of advice. Our findings raise a question about whether it makes sense to have solicitors as the gatekeepers to the range of advice that single parents so clearly need."
Richard Moorhead, senior lecturer at Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University, said: ¡§Lone parents struggle with a poisonous cocktail of legal and social problems, that often run on for years after relationship breakdown. Incidence of depression was high and lone parents routinely struggled with debt, contact, violence and benefit problems unaided. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case for strong support from the Community Legal Service and yet far too many lone parents struggle to find the advice that they need. Whether the cause is advice deserts or something more subtle, what we need to remember is that access to justice problems have human consequences.
"This research shows there is a strong case for bringing the funding of social welfare law up towards the levels provided for traditional family law services and for making those services more visible and more accessible to lone parents."
Key findings from the report include: