to be astounded that the CSA are going to take a cut of maintenance payments?

[Inertia]

Link here : m.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/13/fees-child-maintenance-intervention?cat=society&type=article

How on earth can the government justify this ?

While you're all busy slagging off fathers in general, just do bear in mind that there ARE fathers out there doing their level best. The CSA has always targeted the ones who DO care and has made their lives hell, while ignoring the ones who don't care because it's too much hassle.

This is NOT just about feckless fathers versus single mothers. It is parents with care, who may or may not still be single and may or may not be women, versus non resident parents, who may or may not be men and may or may not be "feckless".

And by the way, if you have not personally experienced the craziness of the original CSA1 with the impossibly high assessments, year long delays, mistake after mistake and threatening demands to pay up invented arrears, then IMO you are not qualified to comment on the effect of the CSA upon NRPs and their families.

But I sense I'm wasting my breath here.

"While you're all busy slagging off fathers in general"

No one is slagging off fathers in general.

We're slagging off deadbeat ones who don't support their children. Any particular reason why they shouldn't be slagged off?

"This is NOT just about feckless fathers versus single mothers" Well actually, it is. If there were no such thing as feckless fathers, or, let's be less idealistic, if they represented a small, but statistically unimportant section of NRP's, the CSA would not need to exist, it would never have been set up.

It was set up because the majority of NRP's did not pay maintenance. More than 2 decades later, in spite of the CSA's existence, the majority of NRP's still don't pay maintenance.

I sense I'm wasting my breath here too. No one is saying that there aren't good men out there who do their level best for their kids. The problem is, they are in a minority. The deadbeats outnumber them. 60% remember. (Am I wasting my breath too? )