Child support: The limits of social policy based on assumptions of knavery

Julian Le Grand has argued that a key component of welfare reform involves changes in the assumptions about human behaviour which are embedded in soci al policies. Policy assumptions have been transformed from espousing a beli ef that social service providers act as well-intentioned knights and recipi ents as passive pawns, to a stance in which all participants are regarded a s self-seeking knaves. These ideas are particularly pertinent to policy dev elopments concerning financial obligations for children, and this paper exa mines these issues in relation to child support policy in New Zealand. If h ighlights the evident and inevitable failure of this policy to meet its pri mary stated aim of revenue generation. In New Zealand this failure is compo unded by the creation of parallel systems for dealing with children and fam ilies, one for financial obligations and the other for care and development , which are founded on diametrically opposed assumptions about human behavi our and capabilities. This confusion is symptomatic of a wider failure in g overnment policy towards families in New Zealand.