New pensions provision and maintenance

Haven't hunted for a link, but I KNOW that Ex-P's scheme is mandatory, I have had to explain the paperwork to HIM. Which, when I know that maintenance is calculated AFTER pension contributions, led me to phone up someone fairly high up in the CSA who deals with my case the CSA and query how it would be affecting my maintenance payments, to get told that they would calculate it AFTER the pension contributions, and by doing a small bit of maths, I managed to work out that I will be losing 7.5%, or £18 a month, of my maintenance.

He works for the NHS, I don't know if this affects ALL workers, or just NHS ones.

Why IS the whole cost of childcare for a working Lone Parent borne by the Lone Parent, anyway? Surely that should be 50% paid by the NRP too? Why isn't that included in maintenance calculations?

It bugs me even more - because I can't pay into a pension, because I can't currently AFFORD to work, until 1yo DS3 is 3yo, as I can't afford the childcare (long story, but IMO THAT cost should be shared between both the resident parent and the NRP too - me putting DS3 in nursery enables HIM to work too, but I'll bet there's hardly ANY NRP's that see it that way...not their responsibility or problem, is it, how the RP afords childcare...)

Because the CSA calculate maintenance AFTER pension contributions. And as the amount the CSA say he has to pay has changed, so what he ACTUALLY pays me will be changing. He doesn't see the CSA calculation as a minimum that he has to pay to support his dc - he sees it as THE amount that he has to pay.

Anything over and above that is given with strings - i.e. I have to practically kiss his feet and make him feel like a great father for giving me ANYTHING over and above the maintenance that the CSA says he has to pay. And because I'm not willing to prostrate myself at his feet, and provide him with a 'best father' medal for giving me a whole £5 over what he SHOULD be giving me (in his opinion), he isn't going to do it.

He thinks that a good father pays the maintenance the CSA tells them to, a GREAT father gives an extra £5 a month and has their ego massaged for doing so. Whereas I see it as the CSA assessment is the barest minimum that the father should pay, and it just makes him a father if he does so.

Apparently, when he DID help me out once, with £5 extra because DS2 needed new school shoes unexpectedly (i.e. not fully budgetted for yet), he told me that he "wasn't going to do it again, because I wasn't grateful enough". I.e. I had complained about him being late that day to pick his son up for access...I should have shut up because he was such a great father to give me a whole £5 over and above what he should be paying me.

And a LOT of absent fathers are the same as my Ex-P, so I KNOW I won't be alone in this being an issue.