to think that these changes to Child Support will cause financial strain and make financial abuse worse.

[Darkesteyes]

I remember another MNer talking about this a while ago. It is a completely stupid idea and will make life harder for many families.
It will also give abusive ex partners an extra way of exerting control.
Its so bloody stupid it beggars belief.

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/20/threat-child-maintenance

toothbrush

the second the csa are involved nrp can have the court order quashed and the court will not enforce an order if the csa are involved unless the salary is over about 2k a week after deductions.

CSA won't get involved in first 12 months. From cmoptions site:
^But you should be aware that a Consent Order about child maintenance almost always happens only when people are going to court for other reasons, such as arranging a divorce or dividing property or other assets.

After this, if the parent without the main day-to-day care fails to pay the child maintenance agreed in the Consent Order, the court can enforce payment. During the first 12 months of a Consent Order, you cannot ask the CSA to put an arrangement in place for you^

cmoptions

This is the bit that got me:

A spokesman for the DWP defended the decision to deduct fees from the maintenance collected, saying: "There's plenty of evidence that the CSA has been used by some parents as a weapon against another parent. That's why ministers felt it necessary to have charges on both sides."

Because expecting the other parent to actually contribute to their child's upbringing is of course a nasty form of game playing.

I think that says it all about how this current government view the roles of men and women. Women should just take all the responsibility and suck it up if they are treated like shit.

Great. So Ive just got away from my unhinged, psycopath of an ex who financially, sexually and physically abused me. The same ex who tried to tell me he didnt trust me with money so wouldn't pay me maintenance but that I could send him a weekly shopping list of things DD needed and he would chose the items, buy them and have them delivered (this incl food).

The CSA are fighting like mad to get some money off him while I struggle to cope financially with an 18mo and being 19wks pregnant. And the govmnt want to make me reopen negotiations with this vile man who I am petrified of and want to run a mile from. Good stuff.

is that not the old rules? pre 2003

i had a consent order that was never paid by the nrp despite 3 enforcement hearings. he applied to the csa 10 months into the consent order because he knew the csa would effectivly disregard all his income as he recieves a army disablement pension (treated as a benefit like jsa) on top of owning his company (the one i started up and handed over in exchange for the agreement in the first place).

the csa knew i had a consent order the only thing they had intrest in was if it was issued befor or after 2003 (could be wrong on the exact year). as soon as the nrp told the court he had applied to the csa the judge effectivly cancelled the order and stopped all enforcement actions against the nrp.

dahlen that bit got me as well.

often you get people jump in on these threads going on about a dh's ex who took payments directly but told csa it hadnt been paid and other such horrors. but imho that fraud that should be delt with not using the csa as a weapon.

the csa uses a fairly minimal % of a nrp's income that imho is not a true reflection of the % of income that a pwc contributes towards the ass costs related to the child. nrp's often bang on about how its unfair and how its skinting them ect but seriously its 15% of the income after deductions inc pensions and if other children are resident with the nrp deductions for them are also made. (higher % for more kids)

to give you an idea a nrp who earns 500 a week who has 3 or more kids living with him and has his other child sleep over 1 night a week will only be ordered to pay £48 pw less if s/he has travel costs to collect kids,a disabled child in his/her house and a pension contribution to make if he has 3 or more pwc involved it will be about £80pw split equally between pwc depending on how many kids he has with each. £300pw income is 29 pw 201pw is 19.

any parent who defrauds the csa should be prosicuted for fraud pwc/nrp.

paying a perfectly reasonable low % of your income via csa or not for cm is not a punishment its a responsability

There are PWC that abuse the CSA system and use it as a weapon when they are not getting their own way. They deny receiving private payments or simply just want to cause hurt.

It must be better for the children to have a private agreement as it means things are fairly amicable.

Its a service so a charge is not unreasonable, most services charge for what they do.

How can asking a parent to pay for their own child cause hurt?

How can you deny private payments when there is a papertrail of money received? Unless you're talking cash, of course, which begs the question why...

Of course it's better if parents can reach an amicable private arrangement. Warring parents are the last thing any child needs. But the point is that the CSA was created precisely to deal with the sorts of parents who won't come to a private agreement.

Very, very few parents of either gender are going to use the CSA and all the hassle it ensues if they can reach a private agreement that keeps things relatively amicable and covers costs. The amount of people using the CSA that don't really have to are minimal to the point of being negligible. This is just pure cost-cutting rhetoric at the expense of children.

Why do the woman and child have to cop the 7%. Charge the father an extra 7% so the parent actually looking after the child on a day-to-day basis gets the full amount they are entitled to.

Happy Mummy - of course it's better to have a private agreement. What about the NRPs who refuse one?

There are loads of us on here who can tell you tales like that. My consent order was based on CSA calculator and said just less than £300 per month (he was involved in this calculation). He discarded it 2 months in.... Fighting through courts and using CSA hasn't achieved more than £500 across the last 3 years?

Should I just accept zilch?

Where do I go next? I think this new system will mean that I do accept zilch and he will then go back to working. I will bring the DC up unsupported.

"There are PWC that abuse the CSA system and use it as a weapon when they are not getting their own way"

Agree with this. Whether other posters agree or not, some pwc will not accept a private agreement simply because they like the idea of having control over the nrp via a government agency. I have seen it first hand. As have others on mn. It exists.

no happymummy there are pwc who commit fraud.

paying 15% of your income after deductions is not a punishment or causing hurt unless ofcourse you would really prefer to be paying less or attempting to dictate to the pwc how its spent and when you will pay it.

it is only better to have a private arangement,if that arangement is fair, based on a true reflection of income not messed about with at whim and everything is amicable.

most people you owe money to charge the person who owes the money any costs incured as a result of collecting it on top of the debt itself. granted the person who the debt is owed to has to pay a debt service/court to enforce it but that company gets to include those charges and add them to the debtors debt. i dont think i can even think of a company off the top of my head that is prohibited from doing so.... well apart from the future csa.

Surely it's the person paying the money who should be charged for the service. It is in most cases.

For those people I guess this payment is fair and useful. They will also be the ones getting maintenance one way or another.

What about fathers who don't pay and evade it as a matter of hate? How can that be tackled? I agree it's a waste of CSA money tbh but an alternative system has not been offered. All this system is going to do is force RPs to accept nothing

How exactly does the PWC have 'control' over a NRP by having maintenance collected by the CSA? All that's happening is that money is being collected. Unless you deep down believe that the NRP shouldn't have to pay that money then I fail to see how that can possibly be a form of control.

how exactly is it controling?

nrp pays pwc
nrp pays csa,then csa pay pwc.

the only difference involved is if you dont pay the csa may act quicker

I think you should only pay if money is being paid regularly. If the NRP defaults, the fee is added to their debt.... but this wouldn't work because the CSA would never collect it and thus still lose out.

New system will shift losses to the RPs. I'm sure they need that

'only pay the fee'

Dahlen - for the benefit of enabling you to stop bashing your head against a brick wall

DH's ex simply likes that at the whim of a phone call, she can have a government agency call DH (and they act on her requests immediately as DH is a full payer and therefore easy target) and send their little brown envelopes asking for information. That they can contact his employer and cause his time and hassle having to get information out of his HR department to tell them exactly the information he has already truthfully given them. That they through cock ups contact him repeatedly and therefore cause more time and hassle just to confirm information he has already truthfully given. To reiterate, he pays in full consistently - she just likes that she can have a government agency call and write to him at her whim.

You may have trouble understanding that, but its the truth.

And indeed he was voluntarily paying consistently a higher amount than she got awarded when she went to the csa. Sometimes it's not just the amount of money, some people just like the control.

allnew - she'd probably still do this because she can afford the fee out of the maintenance......

So no change there, but RPs with NRPs not paying will be affected.

Yet more reason to adopt collection of maintenance at source. If the CSA was fully integrated with HMRC, all this information would be available at the click of a button.

I may have some sympathy with your DH's situation and others like him, but that;s no reason to deny the service to the far greater numbers of children currently receiving little or no maintenance whatsoever.

Wonder what happens the maintenance ok the £5 a week come straight out his benefits

Will they carry on doing but charge me for the service now and if so how much ? . There is no way he carry on paying voluntary he did apply to have receive iced due to another child and the fact he needs to travel 45 mins each way to see th

Oh and ds1 and ds2 dad never paid a penny in the last 15 years despite me giving them details where he lived where he was working . One point he gave up work but not claim benefits so no money .

Ds1 now 18 and last year of collage so to late . Ds2 only 15 but nothing I given up keep givIng CsA information . Yet he working and brought a house with his now wide and has 2 younger children . I can't be arsed now with CsA as they don't do anything ( he sees maybe once s year and think twice given them money never anything in way of maintenance

so now reciving a phone call and providing infomation is now controling?

how would that change if instead of providing the info to the csa he has to provide it to the pwc?

human it will still be directly collected but will go up to £10pw but the charge will be deducted as will any variation made as a result of travel. if he is sepperated from the other pwc then that will be split between both of you.