BACKGROUND PAPER

Research on Compliance with Child Support Orders and Agreements in Prince Edward Island|

2003-FCY-1E

Prepared by:
Alderson-Gill & Associates Consulting Inc.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• 1.   INTRODUCTION
• 2.   METHODOLOGY
  • 2.1   Review of the P.E.I. MEP
  • 2.2   Collection and Analysis of Case File Data
  • 2.3   Interviews with MEP Paying Parents and Recipients
  • 2.4   Interviews with Mothers and Fathers Not Registered with the MEP
  • 2.5   Interviews with Professionals Who Work With Separating Parents
• 3.   THE P.E.I. MAINTENANCE ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM
  • 3.1   Relevant Legislation
  • 3.2   General Description
  • 3.3   Case Management
• 4.   CASE FILE DATA FINDINGS
  • 4.1   Who Are the Parents?
  • 4.2   Child Support Orders and Agreements
  • 4.3   Payment Methods
  • 4.4   Default and Enforcement Strategies
  • 4.5   Child Support Payment Patterns
  • 4.6   Summary of Findings Relating to the Case File Data

• 5.   ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEWS WITH PARENTS AND PROFESSIONALS

  • 5.1   Employment and Income
  • 5.2   Orders and Agreements Relating to Parenting and Child Support
  • 5.3   The Separation Process
  • 5.4   The Relationship Between Paying Parent and Children
  • 5.5   The Relationship Between the Parents
  • 5.6   Non-MEP Cases
  • 5.7   Summary of Interview Findings

• 6.   REVIEW OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE RESEARCH STRATEGY

  • 6.1   MEP Case File Data Collection
  • 6.2   Interviews with Professionals
  • 6.3   Interviews with Parents Registered with the MEP
  • 6.4   Interviews with Parents not Registered with the MEP
  • 6.5   Conclusions Regarding the Research Strategy
• 7.   CONCLUSIONS
• LIST OF REFERENCES
• APPENDIX:  MEP-P.E.I. DATA COLLECTION SHEET

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research conducted for this study depended in large measure on interviews with many parents in Prince Edward Island, which were lengthy and dealt at times with difficult personal matters in their lives. They assisted us with no expectation of reward other than the knowledge that they were contributing to a project that could help federal and provincial efforts to improve the way governments and the legal system deal with separating parents with children. For their contribution we are grateful. The team that produced this report also appreciates greatly the time and effort taken by Debbie Conway, the Director of the Maintenance Enforcement Program in P.E.I., and her colleagues, to facilitate the research and to make our extended stays on the Island a pleasure. Also, we would like to thank the lawyers, judges, court workers and social workers in P.E.I. who took time to share with us their experiences working with separating parents. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the very substantial contribution made by the Child Support Team at the Department of Justice Canada, and in particular Jim Sturrock, Catherine Massé and George Kiefl.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 1996 the Department of Justice Canada was given a five-year mandate under the federal government’s Child Support Initiative to undertake a number of activities relating to child support. One of the activities decided upon was a research strategy to investigate the factors that influence compliance and non-compliance with child support orders and agreements.

In early 1999, the first project under the research strategy on compliance and default began in Prince Edward Island.  The project was conceived as an analysis of compliance in Prince Edward Island, and a test to help assess the methodologies for studying compliance in other provinces.  Ultimately, the objective was to collect and analyze sufficient information to provide a national perspective on compliance with child support orders.

The research was designed to be exploratory in nature and did not set out to test a set of specific hypotheses.  It was recognized in the research design that the decisions parents make about paying child support are often based on complex circumstances, attitudes and inter-personal relationships.  Research in the area was determined, through a prior literature review, to be relatively new, particularly in Canada but in other countries as well.  Many questions have yet to be adequately explored as to what factors may influence compliance.  More complex still will be the exploration of the interrelationships of these factors for paying parents of child support.  In addition, it is understood that perspectives on the payment of child support may change over time, as the time since separation increases or as circumstances such as new relationships or new employment situations come about.

In the context of these complexities and the narrow base of existing research, the scope of this project was limited.  We set out in P.E.I. to test a range of research methods, and to identify factors that appear to influence compliance with child support orders and agreements.  To the extent that the numbers of cases involved in the research allowed, we hoped to identify some factors that appear to be most strongly influential, and to learn more about how to examine those particular factors in more detail in the larger compliance project of which the P.E.I. study is a first stage. We also hoped to lay the groundwork so that the research in other provinces, with larger numbers of interviews to work with, will be able to explore how the key determining factors interact with each other over time.  Ultimately, it is hoped that the overall study will be able to identify some “paying parent profiles” that incorporate categories of support payment records and key factors influencing compliance.

The research in P.E.I. combined several methodologies.  First, information was extracted from a sample of cases registered at the province’s Maintenance Enforcement Program (MEP).  That information included some demographic characteristics of the paying parents and recipients of child support, information about the child support order or agreement that was the basis for the child support expected to be paid, and a detailed accounting of the actual payment of child support, from 1990 to the research period in March 1999 (or until the case had been closed).  The main purpose of this element of the research was to examine patterns of compliance and default, and to categorize paying parents according to their payment histories.  The second main research element was interviews with paying parents and recipients of child support.  A sample of 130 people were interviewed, including 51 paying parents and 79 recipients.  In 31 cases, both parents in the same case were interviewed.  The interviews ranged in duration from 45 minutes to two hours, and explored a wide range of issues believed to potentially have a bearing on child support compliance, including:  pre- and post-separation relationships and child care; the process of separation; decisions about where the children would live, visitation by the non-resident parent, and child support; and the parents’ experience with legal and other government institutions.

The third main element of the research was interviews with family law lawyers, judges, court workers, mediators, court-appointed social workers and maintenance enforcement officers.  These interviews were designed to ensure that the researchers understood the formal structures that may come into play in P.E.I. when parents with children separate, and to benefit from the experience of people who work with these parents on a regular basis in seeking to understand the factors that may influence compliance and default.

Findings from these three key research elements were analyzed together, and the findings are presented in two chapters:  the first focussing on compliance patterns; and the second examining the factors influencing compliance with child support.

Data on compliance patterns showed that while the majority of child support amounts are in the smaller range (two-thirds are $300 a month or lower, and 43 percent are $200 a month or lower), support is not forthcoming on a regular basis in three-quarters of the cases, and in about 42 percent of cases there are significant default problems.  Our two primary measures of compliance—the frequency with which monthly obligations are paid in full and on-time, and the percentage of total obligations paid—indicate that the problems with compliance are complex and vary greatly in nature.  A substantial number of paying parents pay in full and on-time every month.  Some pay in full for extended periods, miss a number of months, and then resume payments and gradually pay off the arrears.  Some paying parents pay at least some amount all or most months, but frequently pay less than what they are obliged to pay.  Some pay very sporadically and in amounts not clearly tied to their monthly obligations.  The degree of variation in payment patterns suggests that a host of factors influences whether or not support obligations are met, and that in individual cases compliance may be tied to a single predominant factor or some combination of factors.

The analysis of MEP case files also provides us with information about the enforcement strategies used by the MEP, and some information about the resulting payment behaviour.  However, it is clear from this analysis, and from the researchers’ detailed review of the MEP files, that it is not possible to obtain an accurate picture of the relationship between specific enforcement measures and resumptions in payments, and it is unwise to assume a “cause and effect” relationship, even when a resumption in payment follows closely after the initiation of a specific enforcement action.  There may well be some enforcement measures that work better than others, and enforcement strategies that prove to be more effective overall.  Our analysis thus far suggests that in order to identify those “best practices” in the enforcement of child support orders, it will be necessary to examine a sample of specific cases in detail.

Analysis of the MEP case file data was a first step; it indicated the extent of the problem with non-compliance and indicated, by the wide range of payment patterns, the complexities in understanding why some paying parents pay support regularly and in full and others do not.  Our analysis of the interviews with paying and recipient parents, and the linking of those interviews to actual payment patterns, allowed us to test the broad premise that compliance and non-compliance with child support orders are influenced by factors beyond just the ability to pay, and are related more to willingness to pay.  We also sought to identify those “willingness to pay” factors that appeared to be most strongly determinant, in themselves, of compliance or non-compliance.  Key findings in this regard included the following:

• Data from the interviews and case file data support the broad premise that “willingness to pay” factors can be an important influence on compliance.  The lawyers, judges, social workers, court workers and MEP officers interviewed supported this premise strongly, suggesting in fact that “willingness to pay” issues are much more likely to influence compliance given that child support obligations are determined on the basis of ability to pay.
• Recipients of child support who had had difficulties with non-compliance by their former partners, when asked why they thought support was not paid, identified predominantly “willingness to pay” factors.  On the other hand, paying parents explained missing payments primarily by “ability to pay” factors, but some also identified “willingness to pay” reasons.
• The nature of child support orders and agreements appear to be important factors in compliance.  Where a parenting arrangement includes shared residence with the children, compliance appears to be higher.  If a formal arrangement is in place for visitation, compliance is marginally higher, but the amount of actual contact appears more important.
• Where arrangements for parenting are made through an agreement rather than a court order, compliance is more likely to occur.  An important caveat to this finding is that when the immediate post-separation arrangements are made by an agreement, it is often an implicit one in which issues have not been discussed adequately or at all.  It is often a case of one parent (usually the paying parent) leaving the family home without any substantial discussion having taken place between the parents about shared parenting or child support.  In these cases, there is a greater risk of low compliance.
• Larger child support amounts are more likely to be paid than lower support amounts.  However, substantial numbers of paying parents with higher obligations still fall into the “moderate” or “low” compliance categories.
• Our ability to assess the quality of the pre-separation relationship between paying parents and their children was limited, but by the measures used here the quality of that relationship did not appear to be an important factor in compliance.  The post-separation relationship, however, did appear to be important.  Paying parents who reside with their children some of the time, or at least see their children very regularly and often and participate in their care and essential activities, are more likely than others to comply with child support obligations.
• The fact that some parents had been married or living in common law, while others had had more casual relationships, did not appear to influence compliance.  Some paying parents who had never seen their child and were no longer in touch with the recipient parent still paid regularly and in full, while many who had been married for years did not.
• Longstanding pre-separation relationships appeared to show results at the extremes:  they were more likely than others to pay regularly and in full, but also more likely to have low compliance records.
• General characterizations of the post-separation relationship between the parents did not help in predicting compliance.  Relationships described as hostile or tense were as likely to be in compliance as those described as friendly.
• Issues concerning money or access to the children by the paying parent, even though they were raised as problems in some cases, did not correlate to compliance or non-compliance.  However, when child-rearing issues were raised (for example, disagreements as to what the children should or should not be allowed to do, or the kind of environment they were being brought up in), there was a clear link.  Paying parents with strong concerns about the child-rearing practices of the recipient parent were more likely to be in default.
• The data showed a clear link between the amount of time that had passed since separation and compliance levels.  As time since separation increases, compliance decreases.  This factor is related to others reported above about the amount of time spent with the children by the paying parent.  As well, the emergence of new relationships can have an impact.  When the paying parent enters a new relationship, compliance tends to increase, whereas when the recipient enters a new relationship, compliance tends to decrease.

In this study the above-described factors were discussed in the context of their possible interrelatedness, but because of the limited number of interviews we had to work with, it was not possible to conduct a more detailed analysis of the relative strength of some of the relationships, and of how these factors may interact at any given time and as time passes.  The goal of the compliance research project, of which the P.E.I. study was a first step, will be to explore these factors in more depth to see how they interrelate. To the extent possible, research in other provinces will seek to identify some profiles of paying parents that incorporate their compliance records and the factors that appear to work together to influence compliance.

We have succeeded as a first step, however, in supporting the general view that compliance with child support is often a decision, rather than a question of ability to pay, and in highlighting some of the factors that appear to be most influential in the decision that paying parents make about whether or not to comply with their child support obligations.

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1.   INTRODUCTION

In 1996 the Department of Justice Canada was given a five-year mandate under the federal government’s Child Support Initiative to undertake a number of activities relating to child support.  These included amending the Divorce Act to introduce child support guidelines; strengthening child support enforcement procedures; improving public awareness and understanding of family support obligations; implementing a cooperative education program for justice officials, service providers and the general public; providing financial assistance to the provinces and territories to implement services to assist parents in obtaining child support orders and to enhance enforcement efforts; and conducting research to monitor the impacts of the child support guidelines.  In May 1998, the department produced a discussion paper proposing a framework for the conduct of research relating to child support.^[1]  One of the proposals was to develop and implement a research strategy to investigate the factors that influence compliance and non-compliance with child support orders and agreements.

In September 1998, the department produced a framework for this strategy that outlined the relevant policy issues and reviewed existing research.  It assessed the range of research that would contribute to the advancement of knowledge in key policy areas relating to compliance with child support, and put forward alternative strategies for a research program.^[2]

In early 1999, the first project under the research program on compliance and default began in Prince Edward Island.  The project was conceived as both an analysis of compliance in the province, and a pilot test to help assess the methodologies for studying compliance in other provinces.  Ultimately, the objective is to collect and analyze sufficient information to provide a national perspective on compliance with child support orders.  The purposes of the P.E.I. component were:

• to test the research strategy itself, in order to make recommendations for similar research in other jurisdictions;
• to identify and analyze detailed patterns of compliance and non-compliance among non-custodial parents registered with the Maintenance Enforcement Program (MEP) in Prince Edward Island;
• to identify and analyze factors that may influence compliance and non-compliance, including those relating to pre- and post-separation family relationships and parental roles, post-separation arrangements to care for the children, experiences with the legal and social service “systems” (including the MEP), enforcement measures by the MEP, income and employment factors, and any other factors that emerged from the research; and,
• to document and assess the potential impact on compliance of the processes involved for parents in P.E.I. who decide to separate, including legal procedures, legal and social service programs available in the community, and dealings with the MEP.

The research was designed to be exploratory and did not set out to test a set of specific hypotheses.  It was recognized in the research design that the decisions parents make about paying child support are often based on complex circumstances, attitudes and inter-personal relationships.  Research in the area was determined, through a prior literature review, to be relatively new, particularly in Canada but in other countries as well.  Many questions have yet to be adequately explored as to what factors may influence compliance.  More complex still will be the exploration of the interrelationships of these factors for paying parents of child support.  In addition, it is understood that perspectives on the payment of child support may change over time, as the time since separation increases or as circumstances such as new relationships or new employment situations come about.

In the context of these complexities and the narrow base of existing research, the scope of this project is limited.  We set out in P.E.I. to test a range of research methods, and to identify the factors related to “willingness to pay” (as opposed to “ability to pay”) child support that appear to influence compliance with child support orders and agreements.  To the extent that the numbers of cases involved in the research allowed, we hoped to identify some factors that appear to be most strongly influential, and to learn more about how to examine those particular factors in more detail in the larger compliance project of which the P.E.I. study is a first stage.  We also hoped to lay the groundwork so that the research in other provinces, with larger numbers of interviews to work with, will be able to explore how the key determining factors interact with each other over time.  Ultimately, it is hoped that the overall study will be able to identify some “paying parent profiles” that incorporate categories of support payment records and key factors influencing compliance.

The research in P.E.I. was funded fully by the Department of Justice Canada, but relied heavily on the interest and participation of the director and staff of the Maintenance Enforcement Program (MEP) in that province.  Throughout the research they were called upon to provide information, explain their operations in detail, facilitate the extracting of data from their information systems, provide interpretations of findings relating to the MEP itself, and look up specific case information.

This report presents the findings of the P.E.I. child support compliance project.  It is organized into seven sections, including this introduction, a review of the research methodology used in P.E.I., a description of the MEP in P.E.I., findings from the analysis of MEP case file data that include an analysis of compliance patterns, an analysis of information on the factors influencing compliance, a review of the P.E.I. research strategy and the lessons learned for research in other jurisdictions, and a set of recommendations.

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2.   METHODOLOGY

The compliance research in P.E.I. was exploratory in two senses.  First, it was a testing ground for applying a range of methodological approaches, each of which evolved as we understood more about how the P.E.I. MEP operated, what data were available in the MEP’s information systems, how amenable the data were to extraction and analysis for our purposes, and what information would need to be obtained directly from paying parents and recipients.  Second, the individual research elements were exploratory in that we did not develop them with a specific hypothesis to test; rather, the approach was to investigate a wide range of issues and consider a wide range of possible influencing factors.  It was to be a starting point both for a planned larger research project and for contributing to the body of research on compliance with child support orders.

The project coordinator for the Child Support Team at the Department of Justice Canada, and others at the department, were consulted regularly during the development of detailed research plans and specific research instruments, such as data collection forms and interview guides.

There were five research elements:  a review of the P.E.I. MEP; the collection and analysis of MEP case file data; interviews with professionals working with separating parents; interviews with paying parents and recipients of child support whose files were registered with the MEP; and interviews with separated parents with children not registered with the MEP.  Each of these is described in detail below.

2.1   Review of the P.E.I. MEP

As a preliminary step for the project as a whole, and in order to have on record an up-to-date description of the operation of the MEP in P.E.I., we needed to review MEP operations in detail. This involved a review of available documents describing the MEP and the legislation under which it operates, an on-site review of the MEP information system and hard files, ongoing discussions with the MEP director and staff, and observations at the MEP office during several extended periods.  These activities enabled us to plan the case file data collection and the sampling for interviews, and contributed to the development of the interview guides.  As well, it resulted in a written description of the MEP, which is included in this report and is also being used as a section in the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics national description of maintenance enforcement programs.^[3]

2.2   Collection and Analysis of Case File Data

During the preliminary stages of the research, the MEP information system was examined to assess the information it contained about individuals and cases, and the possibilities for extracting data for analysis.  It was determined that for the sample required, it would be more cost-effective to extract data from the system manually, rather than develop a program to download data in an automated fashion.  This approach was adopted in part because some information of interest was to be found in “comment” records rather than records that could be easily coded and extracted.  This was particularly the case with background information that helped us to correctly interpret the financial ledgers in more complicated cases, and to obtain more accurate information about enforcement measures, as well as information about employment, Employment Insurance and social assistance that was not readily available in the standardized records.

A sample of 500 cases (about 27 percent of total cases) was randomly selected from a total caseload of 1,868 child support enforcement files.^[4]  The sample was drawn in March 1999.  Cases were scanned prior to sampling and again after the sampling to ensure that we had included an adequate number of cases involving certain key characteristics, such as REMO^[5] cases, cases involving female paying parents and male recipients, and older and newer cases.  The random sampling proved adequate for our purposes, and the collection was initiated.

The data collection was completed using a standardized data collection sheet (see Appendix).  The sheet was developed in consultation with the Child Support Team, based initially on what we hoped to draw from the system, and then modified according to what information was available on a reliable and consistent basis.  It allowed for the recording of information on the sex, date of birth and last known address of paying parent and recipient and the children, information about the support order and any variations, information about income sources, the method of payment to the MEP, details from 1990 to the present about support obligations and payments made, arrears (current and upon entry to the program), and details about any enforcement actions taken.

Not all variables were available for all paying parents and recipients.  The following limitations were found.

• Dates of birth for both paying parent and recipient were available in most cases, but in some cases one or both dates were not in the system.  These were likely cases that were brought to the MEP through an agreement rather than a court order.
• The postal code of paying parents and recipients was recorded as the indicator of location.  However, in some cases no address was on file.  In the majority of those cases we were able to discern from other information in the system whether or not the person lived in P.E.I. or some other province (or outside the country), and in these cases we recorded the postal code simply as “P.E.I.” or “N.B.” (New Brunswick), etc.  In this way we could at least group them according to whether the parents both lived on the Island, both lived elsewhere, or lived in separate provinces.  The location variable identifies the last known location of the parents.  We knew from our experience in trying to locate parents for interviews that some of those addresses were not current.  However, we were primarily interested in their locations relative to each other at the time that the MEP was involved in administering their child support.  In the large majority of cases, the system contained an address for both parties that would have been accurate at the time that the file was opened, at least.  In most cases, addresses were updated when a recipient was either receiving cheques through the mail or was mailed any other information from the MEP, and when there was an enforcement situation.  In cases where the paying parent or recipient left the province and the MEP (or another provincial or territorial MEP) continued to be involved, the information about province of location would be accurate.
• Information in the MEP system on sources of income and income levels is not very reliable.  Employment of paying parents was tracked only when enforcement was required, and there is no ongoing record of changes in employment status, periods of unemployment, or other such fluctuations, except to the extent that “comment” fields in the system described in general terms what was happening with a case at a particular point in time.  Where we have recorded that a paying parent or recipient had been employed outside the home at some time, or had been on Employment Insurance or social assistance, the information is reliable.  However, in many cases we do not know one way or the other, and no information was recorded.  Income levels were only available in a small number of cases, when a court order indicated the income level at the time of the hearing as a basis for establishing the support amount.
• We recorded in chronological order any enforcement actions that had occurred for the cases in our sample.  When possible we also recorded the dates of the actions.  Finally, we looked at payment records for the period immediately after the enforcement action, and recorded whether the action had resulted in a resumption of payment (defined as at least six months of regular, on-time payments soon after the action), a temporary resumption (defined as at least one full payment soon after the action but lasting less than six months), or no resumption of payments.  After a review of this information for a number of cases, and in consultation with the MEP, it was concluded that this information, while of interest in some specific respects, was insufficient to fully understand how the case unfolded, how enforcement actions were used and to what effect, and what factors were influencing the sequence of events.  Our use of the enforcement information and the analysis we have applied reflect these limitations.
• The data on the monthly obligations and payments for each case is considered highly reliable. It is a simple matter to review the two sets of data together, and anomalies show up readily because, in the normal course of events, monthly obligations remain the same for long periods and payments are typically consistent in amount (even if they do not meet the obligation).  In our review we found no instances where changes in obligations or payments were not consistent with notes in the files explaining what had occurred.  We did, however, find anomalies in the data on arrears, when the total arrears appeared not to take into account, for example, the fact that the children were no longer eligible for support, no payments had been made for some time, and no complaint had been registered by the recipient.  These cases were brought to the attention of the MEP and were rectified through a simple accounting entry.^[6]  In our sample, all cases with arrears that appeared abnormally large were investigated, and any such problems were resolved so that our data reflected actual arrears owing.

2.3   Interviews with MEP Paying Parents and Recipients

A major component of the research in P.E.I. involved interviews with a sample of paying parents and recipients of child support registered with the MEP.  The interview sample was drawn randomly from the 500 cases selected for the case file data review, so that interview results could be linked with information we already had about child support payment patterns (and, potentially, other information such as enforcement actions taken and some demographic information).  The purpose of the interviews was to explore factors that may be influential in determining whether child support is paid regularly and on time or not.  At the same time, respondents were asked about their experiences with the MEP itself.

Given that we wanted to interview a substantial number of parents to have sufficient information across a range of potential factors, the primary interview mode was by telephone.  A sample of 100 telephone interviews was decided upon.  In addition, a sample of 20 in-person interviews was drawn in order to determine whether there were benefits in obtaining more detailed and wide-ranging responses from that more personal approach.  A common interview guide was developed for both types of interviews through extensive consultation and review between the researchers and the Child Support Team.  The resulting guide contained sections on the participants’ current living arrangements, including custody, visitation and child support, and current relationship with the children and with each other; their family life prior to separation; the steps involved in separating and establishing their post-separation arrangements; their experiences with the MEP; and their attitudes and beliefs about child support.  The interview guides included primarily open-ended questions.  The interviews were structured and consistent in the questions asked and the ordering of questions, but they allowed considerable leeway for respondents to tell their story about what they had experienced in the period of their life that we were concerned with.

Matched pairs of parents were selected, because, to the extent possible, the objective was to interview both parents in the selected cases in order to have a balanced and comparative view of the factors that may have influenced compliance or non-compliance.  Since the 500 cases selected for the case file review provided a wide range of payment patterns (from paying parents who never paid to those who paid in full every month, and many types of patterns in between), we relied on a random selection for the interview sample.

A letter was sent to all prospective participants with two separate notes, one from the MEP director to indicate that the research was legitimate, and the other from the project manager to describe the study and request their participation.  The project manager’s note assured prospective participants about the confidentiality of the interviews and the independence of the process from the MEP and the Department of Justice Canada, provided toll-free numbers for the project manager, the department and MEP, so that they had a choice about who to call if they did not want to be contacted, and indicated that they would be receiving a phone call in the near future if they did not inform us that they would prefer not to be contacted.  We recognized that the issues being studied, as well as the fact that they would be contacted by researchers as a result of their being registered with the MEP, might be of concern to prospective respondents.  Thus, we made every effort to give them an opportunity to decline to participate.  At the beginning of the interviews, we were careful to describe the kinds of questions we would be asking, reassure them that their confidentiality would be respected, and tell them that they should feel free not to answer questions they were uncomfortable answering.

The introductory letters were sent to an initial 220 parents, as we anticipated that some addresses and telephone numbers would not be current, that some parents would be difficult to locate, and that some would choose not to participate.  As well, we were aware that because the interviews were being conducted through the summer and into the fall, the early period might coincide with vacations.  Ultimately, it proved necessary to draw an additional sample of 200 names (100 pairs, or cases) and send the same letters out, because of the high number of people who could not be located or who in one way or another indicated that they would not participate.  The majority of the latter simply made themselves unavailable by not answering the telephone at the time agreed upon for the interview, or repeatedly putting it off so that it became apparent they did not intend to participate.  Very few people who were reached said directly that they did not wish to participate.

In-person interviews were chosen randomly from the first wave of potential respondents.  They were conducted by the project manager, who based himself in P.E.I. for an extended period and conducted the interviews in most cases in the respondents’ homes.  No-shows were common, but persistence paid off in most cases.  Beyond the potential benefits to the interview process itself, it was considered beneficial to have visited the respondents in their homes, and to have had a first-hand view, however brief, of their living circumstances.

Part of the introduction to the interviews was to reassure participants about the confidentiality of the process, and indicate that if they found a given question too intrusive, they should feel free to ask us to move on to the next question.  Despite the extensive and highly personal nature of the interviews, not one person refused to answer a question.  Of course, questions can be answered in varying degrees of detail and accuracy, and with varying degrees of forethought, but the researchers found no outright reluctance to answer questions.  In a small number of cases, questions about relationships (for example, between a paying parent and his children) elicited very short answers, or were referred to as confusing or “weird” questions.  However, the interviewers were prepared to explain the reasons for the questions, and to rephrase them if this seemed necessary to get a meaningful answer.

Ultimately, 18 in-person and 112 telephone interviews were successfully completed.  The interviews lasted from 45 minutes to four hours, with the great majority lasting between one and two hours.  The respondents were given every opportunity to be expansive in their comments, and the interviewers took extensive notes, in keeping with the objective to understand in the language of the parents themselves what their experiences had been and how they felt about what they had been through.

2.4   Interviews with Mothers and Fathers Not Registered with the MEP

A final research element was added to the project a part of the way through it, to account for the fact that many parents with children who separate never come in contact with the legal system or the maintenance enforcement system, and therefore could not be included in our sample.  We recognized that people who chose, for whatever reason, not to register a child support agreement with the courts or the enforcement agency may have a different perspective on the factors influencing compliance.  This additional research element was adopted as an exploratory first step in looking at this issue.  No attempt was made to identify and randomly select a sample of “non-MEP” parents.  Rather, through our contacts with lawyers in P.E.I., we obtained names of parents who would agree to participate in an interview.  The contacts were asked to select parents with a range of types of circumstances, so we would not, for example, only interview people who had steady, highly paid employment and no difficulties with child support.  The same interview guide used for “MEP” parents was used in these cases, with some minor adjustments to reflect the fact that they had no experience with the MEP.  This method of identifying non-MEP parents proved inadequate.  Most contacts were unable to provide us with names (or did not wish to, for whatever reason), and the names we did get were all recipient mothers.  Ultimately, 10 interviews were conducted with “non-MEP” parents, all with the custodial parents.

2.5   Interviews with Professionals Who Work With Separating Parents

It was recognized in designing the research that the legal system itself could have an influence on parents’ experiences with the separation process, and on their attitudes toward each other and toward the care and support of their children.  The department’s literature review indicated that interviews with professionals working with separating parents with children had not been conducted in previous compliance research.  Therefore, we included in the research plan a set of in-person interviews with local family law lawyers, judges, mediators, court officers, parenting education workers, social workers hired to conduct assessments for the court, and the MEP director.  A total of 15 interviews with professionals were conducted, using an interview guide that set out specific areas of inquiry and encouraged a broad consideration of issues that could be viewed as pertaining to parents’ experiences with the legal system and to the professionals’ impressions of the factors that may influence parental attitudes.  The guide was developed in consultation with the Child Support Team.

The interview subjects were selected with the advice of the MEP director.  The family law community in P.E.I. is small compared to other jurisdictions, and while the number of interviews reflected the available budget rather than an effort to draw a representative sample, we were advised that the people selected represented a reasonable cross section of relevant professionals.

In the case of practising lawyers, eight were interviewed, five of whom represented separating mothers and fathers for a range of purposes, from the development of agreements to the settlement of disputes about custody and access, child support and division of property.  None of them represented custodial or non-custodial parents exclusively, but as individual lawyers do tend to represent one of those more than the other, an effort was made to include lawyers representing each parental category.  Two of the lawyers interviewed represented the provincial Department of Health and Social Services.  They provide legal counsel to women receiving social assistance, through their Family Support Orders Program.  The program’s purpose is to obtain child support from non-custodial parents (98 percent of whom are fathers) for custodial parents on social assistance.  Once clients are referred to the lawyers, they also receive their legal services relating to custody and visitation issues.  The eighth lawyer interviewed is an employee of the provincial Ministry of the Attorney General, and acts on behalf of the MEP director to enforce the Maintenance Enforcement Act and the Reciprocal Enforcement Act.

We interviewed two judges in Charlottetown (one of the two family courts on the Island, the other being in Summerside) who regularly preside in Family Court and hear cases involving child support and related matters.  We also interviewed the court Registrar and two Family Court counsellors who are social workers hired by the court to conduct home studies and report back on recommendations for a parenting plan for separating parents with children.  They also act as mediators and family counsellors.  The two interviewed for this research were also involved in a new parenting education program being implemented in association with the Family Court.  In addition, we interviewed the Child Support Guidelines Officer, who is responsible for assisting parents in applying for variations to existing support orders under the new Federal Child Support Guidelines.  Finally, we interviewed the Director of the MEP.  In fact, much of the research was based at the MEP offices, and throughout the research period we had many occasions to talk with the Director and staff members about the full range of issues under consideration.

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3.   THE P.E.I. MAINTENANCE ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM

This section of the report describes the MEP in P.E.I.  The information is drawn from official program documents, discussions with the MEP Director and staff, and the observations of the researchers over the course of the study.

3.1   Relevant Legislation

Maintenance enforcement is governed by the Maintenance Enforcement Act, R.S.P.E.I. 1988, c.M-1, as amended.  The latest amendments to the Act, to enable the MEP to undertake motor vehicle revocation, were in 1997.

3.2   General Description

The MEP was created under the Maintenance Enforcement Act in 1988.  Before then enforcement was done by the Registrar of the Family Division of the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island, under the Department of Provincial Affairs and Attorney General.  Presently, the mandate of the Maintenance Enforcement Act provides for enforcement by a Director of Maintenance Enforcement and support staff.  On the MEP’s organizational chart, the Director reports to the Director of Legal Services at the Office of the Attorney General.

The MEP has no formal relationship with other government agencies, per se.  However, a liaison officer, an employee of the Department of Health and Social Services, is housed at the MEP because of the significant number of support orders, registered by that department for social assistance recipients, that require enforcement.

The MEP operates out of a single location with offices housed within the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.  The Director attends relevant court hearings at courthouses in Charlottetown and Summerside.  At present, the program operates with a total of four staff (not including the Liaison Officer from the Department of Health and Social Services). These are:

• one full-time Director of Maintenance Enforcement;
• one full-time Senior Enforcement Officer;
• one full-time Enforcement Officer; and
• one full-time Bookkeeper, who also performs a variety of clerical duties and assists with enforcement activities.

Legal representation is provided to the program by in-house counsel through the Department of Provincial Affairs.  These lawyers also provide legal services to a number of other government departments.

There were 1,868 cases enrolled in the MEP as of December 1998, about 1,600 of which were active at the time of the research.  This compares with about 1,400 active cases in 1997.  The MEP Director reports that there has been a steady and significant increase in caseload since the MEP was established.  This corresponds to the experience in other jurisdictions across the country.  About 82 percent of the active cases in 1998 were non-REMO (Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders) cases, 11 percent were REMO-in cases and 7 percent were REMO-out cases.^[7]  A small number of the non-REMO cases involved paying parents^[8] or recipients living out of province, but these did not require enforcement and, therefore, were never registered with another MEP as a REMO case.  The MEP administers primarily child support orders and agreements (because spousal support orders are less frequently included in separation and divorce settlements).  Almost 90 percent of cases are exclusively for child support, but 3 to 4 percent of cases are for spousal support alone, and another 8 to 9 percent are combined child and spousal support.  During 1997 and 1998, the MEP processed payments totalling $4.4 million and $4.7 million, respectively.

3.3   Case Management

The operations of the MEP involve intake/withdrawal procedures, tracing/investigation activities, monitoring of case and payment behaviour, payment processing and disbursement, and enforcement activities.

3.3.1   Case Intake/Withdrawal

Enrolment in the MEP occurs in several ways.  Court orders that include child or spousal support provisions are automatically registered with the MEP.  As well, child and spousal support agreements can voluntarily be registered with the court and will be enforced by the MEP.  This is a common practice in Prince Edward Island when agreements are drawn up with the assistance of lawyers or mediators.  With the exception of cases registered by the Department of Health and Social Services (for which support payments are directed back to that office to be accounted against social assistance payments), cases can be withdrawn by recipients at any time.  Likewise, recipients who have withdrawn may re-enter at any time.

Enrolment in the program requires a support order or agreement and a completed filing information form.  Orders may be filed with the MEP either in person or by mail.  All relevant case information is extracted from the file and entered on the MEPS (the program’s computer system).  For orders made within the province, the MEP requires only one copy of the order, filing information, and any other relevant information that the client wishes to provide.  Where cases are REMO-in, the MEP will accept one to three certified copies of the order, a default affidavit, and any other accompanying supporting information.

Once a case is registered, an introductory letter and payroll deduction form is forwarded within a few days to the paying parent.  The letter states that within 14 days the paying parent must either contact the MEP to advise how payments will be made, or complete the payroll deduction form with the employer and forward it to the MEP.  If neither of these is done, the MEP issues a payment order to the employer requiring that it deduct the support amount from pay cheques to the paying parent, and forward a cheque by the required date to the MEP.  Under the Maintenance Enforcement Act, the employer is bound to meet this requirement.  If there is no known employer and the paying parent does not respond to the introductory letter and no payments are forthcoming, enforcement is initiated.

3.3.2   Tracing

MEP staff often depend on recipients to provide information about the whereabouts of paying parents.  They can also use the International Record Exchange (IRE) or federal tracing^[9].  They also rely on the Sheriff’s Offices to assist them in locating paying parents.  At present, the MEP does not have the necessary resources to conduct searches on assets, and there is no automated tracing of provincial databanks in place.  Where paying parents are known or believed to be residing in P.E.I., the number of “untraceable” paying parents is relatively low.  The MEP Director estimates that they would comprise about 5 percent of the total “local” cases.  Cases in which there is information that the paying parent has left the province and support payments have not been forthcoming are sent to the enforcement agency in the appropriate jurisdiction under the REMO process.  In these cases, the Director estimates that 10 to 15 percent do not result in any payments or enforcement action because the paying parent cannot be located.

Cases in which the paying parent has not been located remain active in the MEP system, and efforts are made periodically to follow up on previous tracing efforts.  Most often, however, it is new information brought to the attention of the MEP by the recipient or a friend or relative that initiates action on a file that has been “untraceable”.

3.3.3   Monitoring

The MEP’s information system is capable of producing “obligation reports” from which staff can identify payments that are past due.  However, because of the size of the current caseload and the amount of time required on individual case management, staff more typically respond to notification from recipients that payments are past due.  As well, cases in which enforcement has already been initiated, or which are known to be “problem” cases, are regularly reviewed to ensure that enforcement is proceeding.  It is recognized that this approach tends to be somewhat selective in the enforcement service provided, as the demand from the users tends to overpower the prioritizing of enforcement strategies.

3.3.4   Payment Processing and Disbursement

The MEP is primarily a “pay-to” system (meaning that the MEP receives and deposits payments, and then issues its own cheques to recipients), but it also allows paying parents to “pay-through” the program (meaning that cheques from the paying parent are recorded at the MEP and then sent on to the recipient).  The program accepts non-certified post-dated personal cheques, cash, bank drafts, money orders and certified cheques.  The MEP recently initiated an automatic deposit and withdrawal system.  The paying parent is issued a receipt and the recipient receives a cheque from the MEP.  It is common for paying parents to deliver payments directly at the MEP office, and for recipients to pick up their cheques at that office.  When an NSF (non sufficient funds) cheque is received, the paying parent is charged for this item, and the program may opt to not accept any personal cheques from this account in the future.  In a small number of cases, with the agreement of the recipient, the paying parent pays support directly to the recipient.  This arrangement is noted in the case file, and any subsequent problem with payments requires notification by the recipient, at which time the MEP may require that future payments be made through the MEP.

3.3.5   Enforcement

When the MEP becomes aware that a payment is late, the Director (DME) can initiate a variety of actions.  The choice depends on the frequency with which the paying parent in question has been in default, other recent enforcement actions taken and the result of those actions, information about the income circumstances of the paying parent, and other factors.  The initial MEP response is usually to telephone the paying parent (or write, if no response is forthcoming) to inquire why the payment is late, and make arrangements for immediate payment.  If this is not accomplished, or if there is a history of default, more formal enforcement actions are taken.

Enforcement falls into two categories, either “administrative enforcement” and “court enforcement” (also known as judicial enforcement).  Since the DME is empowered with a range of enforcement strategies, it is when all administrative enforcement strategies have failed that the DME relies on judicial enforcement.  This includes situations in which the DME has been unable to obtain cooperation from an employer, and where paying parents are self-employed or earning “under the table” income.

3.3.5.1   Administrative Enforcement

It is the duty of the DME to enforce maintenance orders filed at the MEP in any manner that appears practicable.  In taking enforcement action, the DME may require from any person or public body any information or control concerning the location, address or place of employment of the paying parent, and any information about the paying parent’s employment income and terms of employment.  The DME may also provide that information to a person performing similar enforcement functions in another jurisdiction.  Where enforcement of an order or agreement is initiated outside Prince Edward Island and is directed to a paying parent residing in Prince Edward Island, the DME is responsible for enforcing that obligation.

• The DME will issue a payment order to the paying parent’s employer, and may issue multiple payment orders as necessary.
• The DME may meet with a paying parent to work out a repayment plan on arrears while placing an onus upon a paying parent to meet ordered obligations (these meetings are referred to as resolution meetings).  While this method may sometimes result in a reduced payment for a temporary period taking into account a change in the paying parent’s income circumstances, the DME recognizes that the ultimate authority for reduction in a support obligation is by variation through the court, and that arrears on support payments owing will continue to accrue until the court orders otherwise.
• An order may be registered against the land of a paying parent, and the DME may enforce a support obligation by compelling the sale of the property.
• The DME may issue writs to seize bank accounts, vehicles, RRSPs and other assets.
• The DME may apply for the suspension of a paying parent’s provincial motor vehicle licence.

The federal government offers assistance to the provinces and territories to enforce support orders, as follows:

• The Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act (FOAEA), under Parts I, II and III, provides mechanisms, including tracing through federal government databases; the interception of federal funds such as income tax refunds, employment insurance and individual GST rebates; and the suspension of federal aviation and marine licences and passports.
• The Garnishment, Attachment and Pension Diversion Act (GAPDA) enables the federal government to garnish the wages and pension benefits of federal government employees.

3.3.5.2   Court Enforcement

P.E.I.’s Maintenance Enforcement Act provides the DME with remedies through the courts for defaults on child support and maintenance orders and agreements.  Defaulting paying parents are given an opportunity to meet with the DME to come to an arrangement to meet their support obligations.  If such a meeting does not take place, or if the meeting does not result in a satisfactory arrangement that is acted upon by the paying parent, the paying parent is scheduled for a court hearing.  In the meantime, or afterwards, the DME may initiate whatever administrative enforcement measures are deemed appropriate.  The Act provides that:

Where a maintenance order that is filed in the Director’s office is in default, the Director may prepare a statement of the arrears and the Director may, by notice served on the paying parent together with the statement of arrears, require the paying parent to file in the Director’s office a financial statement in the form prescribed by the rules of Court and to appear before the Court to explain the default.^[10]

The Court may, unless it is satisfied that there are no arrears or that the paying parent is unable for valid reasons to pay the arrears or to make subsequent payments under the order, order that the paying parent:

• discharge the arrears by such periodic payments as the Court considers just;
• discharge the arrears in full by a specified date;
• comply with the order to the extent of the paying parent’s ability to pay (but an order under this clause does not affect the accruing of arrears);
• provide security in such form as the Court directs for the arrears and subsequent payment;
• report periodically to the Court, the Director or a person specified in the order;
• provide to the Court, the Director, or a person specified in the order the particulars of any future change of address or employment as soon as they occur;
• be imprisoned continuously or intermittently for not more than 90 days unless the arrears are sooner paid; or
• be imprisoned continuously or intermittently for not more than 90 days on default in any payment or requirement ordered.^[11]

When the DME issues notices of default an invitation appears on the summons for the defaulter to meet with the DME and the program’s legal counsel to attempt to resolve the matter prior to the court hearing.  In some cases the defaulter has had a change in income level and may be considered unable to meet the obligations.  These defaulters may be given some time to pursue variation through the courts, and are referred to the Child Support Guidelines Office (a service provided through the courts with federal funding contributions to assist parties in applying for variations to orders or agreements) or independent counsel.  Arrears continue to accumulate until a variation is ordered by the court.  In the event that resolution is successful, the case is removed from the court docket.  The DME has observed that the judiciary supports this “resolution environment”, notably because of the fact that the court docket may include as many as 35 cases and the pre-hearing meetings may result in as few as three cases actually going before the court.  In the event that the defaulter does not follow through with recommendations agreed to during the resolution meeting, the matter is further dealt with by the court and through administrative enforcement measures.

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|4.   CASE FILE DATA FINDINGS|

The following are the findings based on an analysis of 458 files at the P.E.I. Maintenance Enforcement Program.^[12]  The files are exclusively child support cases.  No spousal support or combined support cases were included in the sample.  The case files provide some basic information about the nature of the cases, some demographic information about the paying parents and recipients, and information about payment patterns and responses of the MEP to those patterns.  Later in the report, in our analysis of interviews with paying parents and recipients, we revisit some of the case file data on payment patterns to explore the range of factors that may be influencing payment and non-payment of child support.

4.1   Who Are the Parents?

Data from our sample of paying parents and recipients indicates the following characteristics.

• 98 percent of paying parents in the sample are men.  There are nine women paying parents.  There are no same-sex couples in the sample.
• 81 percent of paying parents and 82 percent of recipients lived in P.E.I. at the time of the research (or at the time the file was designated as inactive^[13]).
• In 66 percent of cases, both paying parent and recipient lived in P.E.I. while the case was active.
• The median age of paying parents in the sample is 38, and the median age of recipients is 35.

The MEP files did not have complete information on the employment status of paying parents.  When the information was in the file and considered reliable, it was because either the paying parent had had a long-standing job and had continued to make payments without interruption, child support payments were being garnished from an employer (or from employment insurance payments), or an enforcement action was being taken and there was written information in the file about the paying parent’s employment or EI status.  Information was considered reliable in 56 percent of cases.  In those cases, 76 percent of paying parents were employed at the time of the research (or at the time the file was made inactive), and 21 percent were receiving EI benefits.  A small number were receiving social assistance or worker’s compensation benefits.^[14]

In the case of recipients, we could not rely on the files for current information on employment status, but we can report in many cases on whether recipients had been employed at any time during their involvement with the MEP, or had been receiving social assistance during that time. About 32 percent of recipients had been employed for pay outside the home at some point during their involvement with the MEP, and 38 percent had reportedly been on social assistance during that time.

4.2   Child Support Orders and Agreements

The MEP enforces child support orders and agreements from several sources.  In some cases, the orders are part of the results of a divorce proceeding.  The order in those cases could have been agreed to by the two parents and formalized by the court, or it could have been imposed by the court.  In some other cases, the MEP is enforcing a court order imposed under provincial legislation, as part of a broader order relating to what have traditionally been referred to as custody, access and child support, after separation but prior to any divorce proceedings.  In still other cases, it is enforcing an agreement between separating parents, whose lawyers (or mediators or other intermediaries) have recommended that the agreement be registered with the MEP to facilitate payments and reduce the risk of disputes over child support.  For this research, the source of the order or agreement is of interest because it may be a factor influencing compliance or non-compliance.

In our sample, 28 percent of cases resulted from divorce orders, 38 percent related to orders under provincial legislation, and 34 percent were based on separation agreements, most but not all of which had been registered with the courts.  Some cases may have started as agreements and ultimately became provincial orders or divorce orders.  For our purposes, cases are classified according to their current source at the time of the research.

Paying parents and recipients have the option to seek variations to support orders through the court if they consider the existing order to be inappropriate because of changed circumstances since the time that the original order was given.  In the case of a private agreement not registered with the court, the party seeking a change that the other parent did not agree with would have to seek an order from the court.  This would not be considered a variation.  There were variations in 16 percent of the cases in our sample, with a large majority of those resulting in a decreased order.  Reasons for the variations were generally not available, but in the cases when the reason was apparent, it was most often because one or more of the children were no longer eligible for support because they were no longer living with the custodial parent, or were not in school and were no longer young enough to be eligible.  In some cases, the financial situation of the paying parent had changed, and either the paying parent or the recipient had sought a variation.  In three cases, one of the parents sought a variation specifically because of the new Federal Child Support Guidelines.^[15]

The amounts of support orders in our sample vary considerably.  The mean order/agreement in our sample was $250 per month.  The smallest amount to be paid was $20 per month, almost all orders and agreements were at least $50, and the great majority were at least $100.  The largest monthly payment was $1,600.  The largest proportion of cases (28 percent) fall into the $101 to $200 range, while 24 percent are in the $201 to $300 range.  Table 4.1 provides a breakdown of the size of the orders/agreements.

Table 4.1
Size of Most Recent Child Support Orders/Agreements

Size of order/agreement	Number of cases	Percentage of cases
	No.	%
Up to $100	70	15
$101-$200	127	28
$201-$300	110	24
$301-$400	59	13
$401-$500	40	9
$501-$1,000	47	10
More than $1,000	5	1
Total	458	100

Note:  Due to rounding, not all percent columns will add to 100.

4.3   Payment Methods

There are a variety of ways that child support payments can be made through the MEP, the most common being by cash or cheque directly to the MEP, which then issues a cheque for the same amount to the recipient.  Such payments may be voluntary, or as a result of enforcement action.  Many payments are made through an attachment of salary or wage.  The employer issues a cheque for the required amount to the MEP, and deducts that amount from the paying parent’s pay cheque.  These are often a result of enforcement action, but some paying parents voluntarily make this kind of arrangement to facilitate payment.

In some cases, payments are made through MEP in another province or territory (or even some states in the United States, and some other countries).  Some payments are obtained through the interception of money being paid to the paying parent by the federal government.  That money can be employment insurance payments, income tax refunds, GST rebates, or pensions.

In a small number of cases, paying parents pay support directly to the recipient even though the order or agreement is registered with the MEP.  This is allowed provided that the recipient agrees and the payments are made regularly.  Table 4.2 describes the ways that payments are made in our sample of cases.

Table 4.2
Child Support Payment Methods

Payment method	Percentage of cases[16]
	%
Directly to the MEP	59
Wage attachment	17
Through another MEP	11
FOAEA interception	11
Directly to recipient	3

4.4   Default and Enforcement Strategies

Cases in default are selected for attention in two ways.  First, cases known to be problematic or that have had recent defaults are watched to ensure that subsequent obligations are met.  Second, recipients are relied upon to call to the MEP’s attention payments which have not been received. Recipients routinely call the office to see if their cheque has come in, and if it is due and has not been received, such a telephone call will generate action by the MEP.  The MEP recognizes that this approach places the onus on the recipients to instigate action, and also that recipients who frequently do not receive payments are forced into the role of calling the MEP on a regular basis to complain and to inquire about what is being done to get the payment from the paying parent.  However, with the MEP’s existing staff, this is seen as the only feasible way at present to accommodate the large number of cases.  Staff resources are limited and, rather than investigating all defaults immediately, the MEP must establish priorities.

The information system at the MEP in P.E.I. is capable of producing a list of cases (for example, on a weekly or monthly basis) in which an expected payment has not been received.  At present, however, it would not differentiate between new defaults, defaults that were already recognized and in the process of being dealt with, or cases that had not been officially declared “inactive” even though MEP staff knew they did not need to act on them.  The result would be that such a list would include a large number of cases that were inappropriate for new enforcement action.  Such a list is not used at present.

4.4.1   Enforcement Actions

The MEP has a variety of enforcement tools at its disposal when child support payments do not arrive at their office on time, ranging from attaching wages through an employer, to requiring the paying parent to attend a default hearing at the Supreme Court, to the seeking of incarceration through the Court.  The desired result, of course, is that payments are resumed, and that is the basis upon which decisions are made about which tool is best suited to individual cases.  The approach taken in P.E.I. is to deal with each case individually according to its circumstances, as opposed to instituting a standardized approach in which a series of escalating enforcement steps are taken in a consistent sequence until payment is resumed.  This is possible in P.E.I. because of its small geographic area and the ability of the MEP (with the Sheriff’s assistance) to find most paying parents who remain on the Island.  However, it also stems from a philosophy adopted by the program that its clients are both recipients and paying parents, and that paying parents deserve to be given an opportunity to explain their circumstances and work out a reasonable payment arrangement.  That being said, if that opportunity is not acted upon and does not result in compliance with the support order or agreement, the MEP is committed to use the enforcement tools at its disposal.

Decisions about which enforcement strategies to employ and which actions to take in specific cases can be complex, and depend on the availability of accurate and up-to-date information about the paying parents’ whereabouts, employment situation, income and pay schedule, as well as factors such as fluctuations in the living arrangements, age and school status of the children, extraordinary expenses that arise, and other factors that may have no legal basis but which can influence paying parents’ attitudes about payment, and therefore the likelihood that they will respond to particular enforcement strategies.  It is true that the MEP is responsible for enforcing, and not for setting, payment amounts.  However, the approach taken in P.E.I. is that if paying parents can show reason why it is not possible to make full payments (as a result of changed income circumstances, for example) or why they should not have to make payments (for example, if one or more children on the order are now residing with the paying parent), it is in the interests of the recipient to make a temporary arrangement to get some payment, while requiring the paying parent to take steps to obtain a variation of the support order.

In our sample, 59 percent of cases had never had an enforcement action taken, and in another 7 percent the only action was a payment order requiring the employer to deduct the support payments from the paying parent’s wages.  Payment orders are worth distinguishing from other enforcement actions because they do not necessarily indicate a default on payment.  If the paying parent does not respond within two weeks of receiving the initial letter from the MEP, a payment order is automatically sent to the employer.  In some cases, there are reasons for the delayed response other than an intention not to pay.  In most cases, however, the payment order indicates at least a reluctance to get payments started expeditiously, and it may indicate that the paying parent has missed scheduled payments.  One-third of paying parents in our sample required enforcement action other than a payment order.  Table 4.3 provides a breakdown of the types of enforcement actions used, and in how many cases each was used.

Table 4.3
Use of Enforcement Tools

Enforcement Activity	Percentage of cases
	%
No enforcement	59
Payment order	17
FOAEA interception	18
Default hearing[17]	11
Default meeting	9
Order or warrant for arrest	3
GAPDA	1 (3 cases)

Note:  Percentages total more than 100 percent because in many
cases more than one enforcement action was taken.

Our information on the comparative effectiveness of enforcement strategies in P.E.I. is restricted to the linking of the dates of specific actions and subsequent payment records.  While this provides a useful measure, it risks oversimplifying the complex interactions often involved in enforcing child support.  It is often the case, for example, that compliance results from a series of enforcement actions taken together.  The form in which the data are available from the system would suggest that the earlier actions had failed and that the last action had succeeded, which would be an inaccurate conclusion.  It may also be that the timing of a resumption of payment had more to do with a changed employment situation or a successful FOAEA garnishment than a specific local enforcement action, even though the dates suggest that payments were resumed soon after the local enforcement action.

Suspensions of driver’s licences do not show up in the P.E.I. data because no suspensions have taken place.  (It is a recently acquired enforcement tool, based on an amendment to provincial legislation in January 1997.)^[18]  However, the MEP Director informs us that the threat of license suspension (in the form of a letter from the MEP) has been responsible for a resumption of payments in a significant number of cases in the last year or so (she estimated that 30 to 35 cases may have been influenced by the threat of suspension).

Table 4.4 describes the impact on payments of the most common types of enforcement actions taken in P.E.I., based on data from the information system.  As we noted above, it is important to remember in looking at the figures that it is not possible in most cases to attribute a resumption of payments to a specific action at a specific point in time—many factors may be at play and influencing the ultimate decision to pay.

Table 4.4
Effectiveness of Enforcement

4.5   Child Support Payment Patterns

One of the goals of this research was to explore patterns of child support compliance and non-compliance beyond simply characterizing paying parents as either in compliance or default.  In the strictest sense, paying parents are in default if they miss a scheduled payment according to their order or agreement, or if they pay less than what they are required to pay.  However, there is a diversity of payment patterns ranging from full and consistent compliance, through various degrees and frequencies of default, to near or total non-compliance.  The differences are of interest because they are a starting point for gaining a better understanding of why compliance and non-compliance occurs, and what policies might be employed to both encourage and enforce compliance.  As to why payments are missed, the case files do not provide consistent information.  In later sections of the report, we analyze interview information in conjunction with the payment patterns of interview respondents in order to look more closely at the factors which appear to be most influential in determining compliance and non-compliance.

The case file data from the P.E.I. MEP provide some considerable detail about payment patterns. For this research we started by using three complementary measures to characterize compliance and non-compliance.

1.      The first measure is the frequency of full, timely payment of monthly obligations.  This provides us with the percentage of monthly payments that the paying parent has missed from the time that the case was registered at the MEP, to the date at which the data were collected in March 1999.

2.      The second measure is the proportion of the paying parents’ total obligation that they paid in the same period.  Because some paying parents pay regularly but, for whatever reason, not in full, this measure is important in developing an overall characterization of compliance.

3.      The third measure is the extent to which arrears have been built up or paid down in the same time period.  Only the net change in arrears is available, because the MEP accounting practices do not differentiate between payments that are intended to be directed toward arrears, and payments directed toward monthly obligations.  In some cases, arrears have been built up prior to the file being opened at the MEP, so the file opens with an arrears amount.  In most cases there are no arrears at the outset, so the net arrears figure represents the overall shortage in the payment of monthly obligations.  What we have focussed on for this measure is the change in arrears while the case has been filed with the MEP.

We have also combined the first two measures, to characterize paying parents according to their record in paying regularly and paying in full.  Because the arrears figure relates directly to the percentage of total obligation paid, unless there were prior arrears, and because we have no information about the reasons for those pre-MEP arrears, we have not included the arrears in our aggregate measure of compliance.

On average, the paying parents in our sample missed about one-third of monthly obligations; that is, for about one-third of all monthly obligations, the payment was missed in whole or in part.  If a payment was within a few dollars of the obligation, it was recorded as a full payment.  Otherwise, partial payments were recorded as missed payments for this measure.  The median “miss rate” was about 20 percent of obligations missed.  This indicates that a relatively small number of paying parents who missed very frequently brought the average up to the one-third level.

Table 4.5 describes the “miss rate” breakdown.  It shows that about 28 percent of paying parents paid in full every month, and that another 21 percent missed 20 percent or fewer payments.  The remaining paying parents are dispersed widely among the other ranges.

Table 4.5
Percentage of Missed Monthly Obligations

Percentage of monthly obligations missed	Percentage of cases
	%
None missed	28
1-20%	21
21-40%	15
41-60%	11
61-80%	9
81-99%	8
100%	7

Note:  Due to rounding, not all percent columns will add to 100.

In examining the extent to which paying parents in P.E.I. met their total support obligations, the analysis is complicated by the fact that we do not have accurate figures on the amount of arrears that paying parents had when they entered the program.  Figures for net arrears at the time of the data collection were available, but it was not possible to differentiate between arrears at entry and arrears accumulated while in the program (as a result of missed payments or new court assessments of arrears).  Looking only at payments due since entry into the program, and comparing that to the total amount paid, paying parents in our sample paid, on average, 80 percent of their total obligations during the period in which they had a support order or agreement registered with the MEP.  This includes situations in which paying parents had paid more than their total obligation (presumably against arrears).  When we factor out those extra payments presumed to be intended to pay arrears, the average is reduced to 75 percent of total obligations.  Another way of stating this is that, overall, the MEP has succeeded in collecting 75 percent of all obligations due by its paying clients, as well as some proportion of arrears not scheduled for monthly payment.  Almost 40 percent of paying parents paid their full monthly obligation or more.

The fact that the overall records for total payments are more favourable than the records for meeting monthly obligations suggests that some missed payments are being made up in subsequent months.  In many cases, this is a result of enforcement efforts.  In some cases, an extraordinary circumstance or a period of unemployment may have resulted in missed payments, which were made up voluntarily once employment was resumed.

Table 4.6 describes the range of “pay rate” records.  It shows that once we look below the 61 to 99 percent range (which means that 61 to 99 percent of the paying parent’s total obligation for the entire time the case has been registered with the MEP has been met), the remaining cases are distributed quite evenly through the other “pay rate” ranges.

Table 4.6
Percentage of Total Obligation Paid

Percentage of total obligations paid	Percentage of cases
	%
None paid	6
1-20%	6
21-40%	7
41-60%	7
61-80%	13
81-99%	22
100%	16
More than 100%	24

The compliance categories were developed by taking all possible combinations of “pay rate” and “miss rate” records, assigning paying parents to their combined record category, and then collapsing those categories into appropriate groups.  For example, a paying parent may be categorized initially as “missed 21-30 percent of payments, paid obligation in full” or “missed 61-70 percent of payments, paid 21-30 percent of total obligation.”

This level of category was then divided into six groups.  Those “fully compliant” had always paid in full every month.  The “almost fully compliant” included those who missed a maximum of 10 percent of their monthly payments and paid 90 percent of their total obligation during their time registered with the P.E.I. MEP.  The “quite compliant” group had missed up to 30 percent of their monthly payments (i.e., some monthly payments were missed altogether, were paid only partially, or were paid well past the due date) and were short up to a maximum of 30 percent of their total obligation over the period studied.  That group may, in fact, have paid their total obligation in full, but were not deemed to be fully compliant because they had missed some payments (even if they made up the difference later).  The “somewhat compliant” group included those with 31-60 percent of payments missed and a maximum of 60 percent of their total obligation missed, or those with up to 90 percent of monthly payments missed, but a maximum of 10 percent of their total obligation missed.  The “almost non-compliant” paying parents missed 61-99 percent of their monthly payments and 11-99 percent of their total obligation, or never paid a full monthly payment, but nevertheless paid some part of their total obligation.  The “non-compliant” paying parents never made a payment.

Combining the two measures into an overall characterization of compliance levels, we see that about 25 percent of paying parents in our sample were fully compliant (paid in full every month), while 6 percent were completely non-compliant.  The remaining paying parents were distributed quite evenly through the remaining categories of overall compliance.

Table 4.7
Overall Compliance Records

Compliance category	Number of paying parents	Percentage of paying parents
	No.	%
Fully compliant	112	25
Almost fully compliant	74	16
Quite compliant	78	17
Somewhat compliant	92	20
Almost completely non-compliant	74	16
Completely non-compliant	27	6

About 55 percent of paying parents in the sample had accrued some level of arrears as a result of not making payments in full.  A majority of those (35 percent of all paying parents) had accrued more than $1,000 in arrears, and a small number had accrued very large arrears (the largest net arrears figure was higher than $68,000, and the next highest was $38,000).  At the same time, some paying parents paid their monthly obligations and made significant payments against arrears over and above that.  About 20 percent of paying parents just paid their monthly obligations and never accrued arrears.

Table 4.8
Arrears Accrued or Paid Off

Net arrears	Percentage of paying parents
	%
Paid off more than $1,000	7
Paid off $501-$1,000	5
Paid off up to $500	13
No net change	20
Accrued up to $500	13
Accrued $501-$1,000	7
Accrued $1,001-$2,500	13
Accrued $2,501-$5,000	8
Accrued $5,001-$10,000	11
Accrued more than $10,000	4

4.6   Summary of Findings Relating to the Case File Data

This section of the report has described the paying parents and recipients of child support registered with the MEP in P.E.I., the orders and agreements under which support obligations are established, the methods used to pay support and to enforce compliance, and the patterns of compliance and non-compliance.

We have seen that while the majority of child support amounts are in the smaller range (two-thirds are $300 a month or lower, and 43 percent are $200 a month or lower), support is not forthcoming on a regular basis in three-quarters of the cases, and in about 42 percent of cases there are significant default problems.  Our two primary measures of compliance—the frequency with which monthly obligations are paid in full and on time, and the percentage of total obligations paid—indicate that the problems with compliance are complex and vary greatly in nature.  A substantial number of paying parents pay in full and on time every month.  Some pay in full for extended periods, miss a number of months, and then resume payments and gradually pay off the arrears.  Some paying parents pay at least some amount all or most months, but frequently pay less than what they are obliged to pay.  Some pay very sporadically and in amounts not clearly tied to their monthly obligations.  The degree of variation in payment patterns suggests that many factors influence whether or not support obligations are met, and that in individual cases compliance may be tied to a single predominant factor or some combination of factors.

The analysis of MEP case files also provided us with information about the enforcement strategies used by the MEP, and some information about the resulting payment behaviour.  However, it is clear from this analysis, and from the researchers’ detailed review of the MEP files, that it is not possible to obtain an accurate picture of the relationship between specific enforcement measures and resumptions in payments, and it is unwise to assume a “cause and effect” relationship, even when a resumption in payment closely follows the initiation of a specific enforcement action.  There may well be some enforcement measures that work better than others, and some enforcement strategies that prove to be more effective in the aggregate.  Our analysis thus far suggests that in order to identify those “best practices” in the enforcement of child support orders, more research is required.  In particular, our research thus far suggests that a necessary next step will be to examine a sample of cases in detail, in order to follow the full sequence of events and communications between the MEP and the paying parent and recipient, identify the reasons why certain enforcement actions were taken and what the response was according to the enforcement officer, and interview the recipient and paying parent to understand as fully as possible what factors may have influenced the payment pattern.

Analysis of the MEP case file data was a first step.  It indicates the extent of the problem with non-compliance and suggests by the wide range of payment patterns the complexity of understanding why some paying parents pay support regularly and in full and others do not.  In itself, however, the analysis does not provide much insight into the factors influencing compliance and non-compliance.  For that, we needed information about the paying parents that is not available in the MEP files.

In the next section, we examine the results of interviews with a sample of paying parents and recipients, and relate those findings to the payment patterns described above, to investigate possible relationships between compliance patterns and factors that may influence compliance and non-compliance.  We also include the findings of interviews with lawyers, judges, mediators, social workers and other professionals working with separating parents with children, to get their views about how parents in P.E.I. experience the separation process and what factors may influence compliance.

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5.   ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEWS WITH PARENTS AND PROFESSIONALS

The primary focus of the research in P.E.I. was to explore factors that may influence compliance and non-compliance with child support orders.  The premise underlying the research was that while ability to pay is often an important factor, other factors related to willingness to pay child support come into play and may at times be strong determinants.  To examine these factors and assess the extent of their influence, the research included interviews with paying parents and recipients of child support as well as lawyers, judges, social workers, mediators and other people connected with the court who work with separating parents with children.

The interviews with parents were designed to make it possible to link their responses to information about their cases at the Maintenance Enforcement Program, in order to examine possible links between paying parents’ compliance records and the factors explored in the interviews.  It was recognized that the decisions paying parents make about paying child support may often be based on complex circumstances, attitudes and inter-personal relationships. Research in this area is new, and many questions have yet to be explored about the factors that influence compliance.  In most cases, they do not operate in isolation, and the ways they interact—their relative influence under different circumstances and how changes of circumstances over time affect decisions about paying child support—all need to be examined.

With these complexities and the narrow base of existing research on factors related to “willingness to pay”, the scope of the