Thursday 7 April sees the end of our three month consultation period on our green paper reforms ‘Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance’.

I believe these reforms will radically improve a system that has been notoriously beset with problems over the years.

Too many separating families think they have no choice but to rely on the state to arrange financial support for their children.

This takes responsibility away from parents and often ends in bitter resentment and hostility.

The Child Support Agency (CSA) is, to say the very least, a blunt instrument presented to one parent to wield against the other.

We cannot continue to expensively facilitate conflict between separated parents. The CSA is costing £460m per annum.

Asking the taxpayer to contribute over 40p towards each £1 it collects from parents is simply no longer justifiable.

Even less so when only around half of all children in separated families benefit from regular payments.

That is why our reforms focus on encouraging and supporting parental responsibility.

We need to join up the complex and bewildering range of services available to separating parents to help them reach their own agreements; not just on money but all of the practical and emotional issues they attached to parenting apart. There has been criticism of our plans to charge for access to the new statutory child maintenance scheme which will replace the two CSA schemes.

It has even been suggested that we are victimising single parents.

The idea of charging is not new and it is certainly not a party political issue. In 2008 Sir David Henshaw’s independent review recommended charging for access to the statutory maintenance scheme in order to promote collaboration between parents.

The previous administration then introduced primary legislation to provide for this.

The present system provides neither parent with a financial incentive to collaborate.

All too often, a recalcitrant non-resident parent – in 95% of cases the father - will wait for the CSA to deploy its increasingly draconian range of enforcement powers before reaching for his wallet.

When they have to contribute to the cost of the enforcement action, they may feel more inclined to pay up promptly.

Under our plans they can help themselves by negotiating with their former partner an arrangement that will spare both of them the charges incurred if they were to use the statutory scheme.

Alternatively, they can pay the maintenance calculated by the statutory service but opt to pay the other parent directly.

The payments arrive quicker and you can avoid the clutches of the enforcement officers unless and until you default. If the payments are on time, both parents can avoid collection fees completely.

It will still cost the state at least £200 to process each new maintenance claim.

We are asking parents with the care of children to contribute half that cost, not just to spare the public purse but also to allow the statutory service to concentrate on those who generally have no alternative.

Parents on benefits will be asked to find just £20 upfront to join the scheme. If they receive no maintenance from the other parent they will not be asked for more.

Far from victimising separated parents we are proposing to give them extra support.

There will be an initial free ‘gateway’ service that will assist parents to make their own, family-based, maintenance arrangements, which is absolutely central to our reforms.

I believe when couples split up they generally know what is best for them and their children without the state interfering.

Thousands of parents are already working together to make their own maintenance arrangements without the CSA.

We also know there may be many more who could have a family based arrangement.

When surveyed, around half of parents-with-care and a majority of non-resident parents using the Child Support Agency felt they would make a family-based arrangement with the right amount of support and advice.

The current child maintenance system just does not work.

We are facilitating conflict where there should be collaboration and dependence instead of responsibility.

Child maintenance is such an important issue for parents when they separate as we know it can help both parents remain involved in their children’s lives and boost their children’s life chances.

Maria Miller MP, is the minister for work and pensions