PARENTS’ automatic right to children’s allowance could be scrapped to ensure families in need get more money. The Social Security Department has targeted the £13.20 weekly payment, currently made in respect of some 12,000 children, for immediate action as part of the States anti-poverty programme. It was directed by the States last year to look at an income-linked payment.

It means that parents on low incomes would receive more, but high earners, whose income has yet to be defined, would get nothing, although payment will be made on a sliding scale.

Newly-elected Social Security minister Diane Lewis wants to take a report to the House within a year in what would be the biggest shake-up in the four years since the States pledged to tackle relative poverty.

‘We have started looking at income-related family allowance and it is a bit of a nightmare,’ she said. ‘We have looked at systems in the UK, Canada and elsewhere.

‘It seems that the only way to do it is to pay an increased amount to everybody and claw back through the tax system.

‘But I think it’s the right way to go. We know we have still got a poverty problem and the redistribution of wealth is one of the major things in the government business plan.

‘We know that families with children and the single elderly are most vulnerable and anything we can do to help them we have really got to explore.’

Deputy Lewis forecast that the change could mean parents claiming an allowance receiving about £20 a week per child. The current scheme costs £8m. a year and any changes would have to be kept to the same budget.

Encouraging people who do not need the cash not to claim it has been considered but ruled out as likely to be ineffective and paying different rates dependent on the number of children in the family appears too complicated.

Deputy Lewis said current States policy on encouraging families to have children was unclear because it might prove that changing rates dissuades couples from having more youngsters.

If the move is approved, it could lead towards closer working with the income tax system, one of Deputy Lewis’s priorities, and perhaps the adoption of tax credits.

She said that progress on the corporate anti-poverty programme had been sluggish.

‘There’s no doubt about it. I hope that things will move faster under the government business plan.

‘The problem is that a number of departments had responsibilities but nobody had the budget.’