Child Maintenance-Should fathers on benefits pay more?

There is a huge amount of misunderstanding as to what PIP is for on here.
There have been posters who have said only working people should get PIP, as what would they need PIP for if they are not working. And that only working people should be able to have a car via Motability because people who do not work do not need to go anywhere 🙄

There are quite a few posters on here who have detailed how PIP helps them stay in work.

Because we still have our mobility & care needs regardless of whether we work or not. Being in work often increases the care & mobility needs. NHS and social care do not pay for these.

You mean someone who is financially supported by their partner? Or parent?
That is the only way someone on zero income would be able to survive.
Bit of a slippery slope to expect their partner/parent income to be taken into account for CMS, and to have them pay it too.

If you don't work (or pretend you don't work) and you don't claim benefits you don't even pay £7 a week.

I've been through this debate for decades.

Usually they go round and round (passim). However, if the danger of the system actually working to extract the money due from absent parents were to actually start working by some miracle, people will start to run into the next problem for society, And that is the danger of violence being escalated against the resident parent and children. Something we already know isn't really taken seriously by the justice system. A system which - if it worked - would have started with making sure the NRP paid up.

A house and well off parents are irrelevant to disposable income.

Whose turn is it to collect £200 ? Seems like we've been around the board since Today 14:35

It's almost as if people with no money have no money.

Sweden (?) has a similar system with convicted criminals, they have to repay what they stole/destroyed.

But the amounts claimed are so enormous that the offenders have no realistic ability to ever repay it and it deters them from 'going straight' as their earnings are the states for ever.

Many of our clients don't have broadband. They use their data contracts or get WiFi in public places.

No you don't. You can go to the library or job centre regularly to access your account.

Depending on your circumstances UC may give you a cheap smartphone under the Flexible Support Fund. You still have to pay the data/airtime contract.

So it is totally underwritten by the taxpayer then ?

Hence why it's a waste of everyones time here, suggesting it for the UK. I refer you to my point previously. You will never get "the taxpayer" to agree to it.

@SerendipityJane it appears Sweden uses a system similar to that suggested. Government pays the resident parent, then recovers it. See post by @Simonjt

That would mean resident parents can count on the contributions. If only we had people in power bright enough to recognise that there are deadbeat, non paying fathers who can afford a nice lifestyle whilst not supporting their children.

I wasn't talking about my ex - you may be talking to the OP ?

Nonetheless, the point stands. The principle of using the benefits system to pay for kids up front and then "somehow" recover the money from the absent parent in such a way to be economically neutral for the treasury. And the chances of that actually working are fuck all. (A good starting point is that no other country in the world has ever tried that.

I'm no spring chicken. And in my years I would take issue with the suggestion previously that somehow in the past there was more shame attached to deadbeat dads. On the occasions I've heard office chatter between guys on the matter it seems to be a perverse badge of honour how fathers can minimise their payments. It's quite sickening.

This isn't a defeatist post, in that I am saying there isn't a solution to the problem. It is a post that says that as a society we haven't been willing to actually make those changes.

As a thought, if 1% of the frothing, chatter and political effort that is currently being engineered about "small boats" went towards making deadbeat dads instead of refugees, then this thread wouldn't exist.

We have this in Sweden, maintenance isn’t a percentage, but a calculation concerning the cost of the children, each adults living costs and each adults wage. Their is however a minimum amount, if the non-resident parent doesn’t pay the government pays and then recovers the money from the non-resident parent.

Is it still only £7 a week for absent parents on benefits? WTF

It was £7 a week 22 years ago when my oldest DD's father buggered off. It was widely considered to be a joke amount back then too.

Un-fucking-believable that it hasn't increased in that time!

It's the cash in hand that's the issue they don't know about it so can't take it into account. You could report him to HMRC

If someone is genuinely on benefits, then they can only pay a small amount. If they're fiddling, that's another issue.

The parent 'not having money' doesn't make the kids cost less. At the moment if they don't pay the other parent has to struggle without. Sure arrears build up and may get paid later but not when needed.

If it was £200 a month minimum (still shit but I think its equivalent to what CMS would be for someone working full time minimum wage) then parent with the kids is paid £200 a month from the government as needed. If the other parent is deemed to only pay £7 a week then the rest can be a priority debt to the government that can accrue interest and be collected later - garnished from future earnings, tax rebates, inheritance etc. Government might close some loopholes and crack down if they are getting it for themselves. They have the power to take assets, prevent them from having a passport and all sorts - they just don't do it.

Your ex has a paid off house, lives there on benefits, works cash in hand, claims poverty but goes on 5 big holidays a year? Well not without their passport they won't be! Expecting a big future inheritance from rich parents that have been paying for their lifestyle? Well the government will be taking a big old chunk of that estate for arrears plus however many years of accruing interest. Poverty but brand new Audi? Repossessed to pay off arrears.

People who have no money have no money.

And there are plenty of people who might say "Why should my taxes go towards covering the debts of feckless fathers ?".

I know this, because this was exactly what happened in the 80s when benefits to parents were stopped by the amount that the absent parent was supposed to pay.

I'll leave the more imaginative to guess how well that ended.

I wonder what would happen if a minimum amount of CMS was introduced. If you're a parent you must pay £X amount. Paid to the receiving parent by the government and then the government is responsible for collecting it. Wonder how much better they would be at clamping down on loopholes, using the powers they could use but don't etc if the money was going to them instead.

That is outrageous.

Just 1% are supporting the other 99% ?!

No wonder this country is fucked.

There are also fathers who have 6 figure bank accounts, move hundreds of miles away from their children because their latest squeeze has dumped them and they need a new start, then choose not to work so that they can pay the £7 per week rate. And don’t even pay that despite being on collect and pay.

So no support whatsoever - financial or otherwise - and knows child’s mother cannot work due to the fact that both children are disabled and one currently is too unwell to go to school. But it’s ok, because what mother took in the divorce is enough for her and their children to live off.

when youngest child turns 18 mother will turn 60. Chance of resurrecting any sort of career is remote.

For every father who has tried to do the right thing and been shafted by CMS, there are these kind of fathers.

morally your ex, like this persons ex, is reprehensible.