The government has announced plans to make failure to pay maintenance a criminal offence in its White Paper on the Child Support Agency (CSA), published on Thursday.

This is to be accompanied by a fine and possibly a jail sentence.

The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (Nacro) describes the jail option as "a backward step towards the debtors' prison".

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Director of policy Paul Cavadino said: "Past experience shows that imprisoning maintenance defaulters hardens their attitudes and rarely makes them produce the money."

He added that imprisonment left children no better off and meant the state had to pick up the tab for jail costs.

Nacro believes rigorous enforcement of maintenance orders, for example, by docking wages or benefits for defaulters or confiscating property is likely to be more effective.

'Dad-bashing'

Families Need Fathers welcomed moves to simplify the formula for calculating maintenance, but said the measures proposed to chase up defaulting parents were "rather draconian".

Its chairman Jim Parton said: "It looks like more dad-bashing as usual."

A spokesman for the National Association for Child Support Action (NACSA) said it welcomed proposals to give parents on benefits more cash, but said the £10 a week benefit disregard was lower than the government had proposed in opposition.

"The more money that goes to children, the more we like it," said the spokesman.

The association's biggest objection is that the reforms are not more radical.

It says child support is so complicated that it should be dealt with by the courts, as it was before 1993 when the CSA was set up.

The government says the court system did not work, but NACSA says that, with the kind of investment pumped into the CSA, it could have.

"It would have been a Rolls Royce system," said the spokesman.

He added that proposals to jail or fine absent parents were "retrogressive" and would criminalise an aspect of family relations when the law was moving to a more conciliatory approach.

And he called proposals to consider withdrawal of driving licences for persistent offenders "a gimmick" which was aimed at grabbing Daily Mail headlines.

"They should be legislating for our children, not for the Daily Mail," he stated.

Kim Sparrow of the Single Mothers' Self-Defence Union said it was against forcing parents to shop their former partners.

It wants mothers to be allowed a choice and fears the White Paper proposals could increase domestic abuse.

Private agencies

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents many staff working at the CSA welcomed the new simplified formula, saying it would "help parents and staff and greatly improve compliance and debt collection".

But it said the government needed to go further to ensure staff conditions and pay were improved.

Alistair Darling outlined the CSA reforms in the Commons

It claimed a quarter of staff a year were leaving due to low morale and poor management.

Joint general secretary Barry Reamsbottom said he was pleased the White Paper "reaffirmed the government's faith in the public sector, rather than allowing the private sector to profit from people's misery".

The government is looking at the option of allowing private agencies to help the CSA collect maintenance money.

A report is being presented to the CSA board on Thursday which will recommend this option, but no decisions have yet been taken.

PCS negotiator Malcolm Tetley said: "As a trade union we have our reservations about private debt collection.

"We think public sector principles should apply over debt collection. It is no good bludgeoning people into paying. It is not necessarily the right way. It might be better to use a velvet glove than a crowbar."

He thought simplification of the assessment system would give CSA officers more time to devote to collecting money.

The National Council for One Parent Families said the White Paper was "the last chance to rehabilitate child support".