AIBU to think how men have got away with this for far to long

[Alex50]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53064741

Why don’t they pay for their children and think it’s ok?

@Thatbitchcarolebaskin I'm going back to my MP with the gingerbread stuff too. I posted something in my Facebook (link to the article) and said I was managing without but this issue was wider than just me, need to do something to help all parents not receiving etc etc I've already been told I shouldn't be drawing attention to his non payment and it's a 'private matter' it's not my wrong and I'm not keeping his secrets. I never post anything re his behaviour etc, I think I'm allowed that one small thing

@Jellyrunner

Yes, I do mean the a lot of dads are stopped from seeing their children by the mum. I think it happens more than people realise that the resident parents stops the children seeing the other parent. It is not healthy for the child. My point is that is yes the non resident parent should be made to pay, by whatever means necessary, however resident parents should also be made to comply with court orders, without ridiculously long 8 month court situations to sort it out.

Fair enough. I agree that enforcement is needed both ways.

Following this with interest.

No personal axe to grind (no kids!), but I wholeheartedly agree that NRP's should face much harsher penalties for non-payment.

I seem to remember that from a legislation point of view, the CSA / CMG actually DO have teeth, and that some of the sanctions mentioned above are technically possible... it's just that they rarely use them as cases never seem to get escalated that far and if they do, the Courts are generally lenient (OK, give them another chance to pay etc etc).

I think - post-COVID we're likely to see big changes to the tax system etc., especially to the self-employed or limited co directors on peppercorn PAYE taking dividends. It would be the perfect time to slot these changes in, get the legislation in etc.

Also, I do think that the (largely disliked) Universal Credit system is the start of more overall joined up thinking, and my experience is that CSA / CMS payments come quite high in the priority order (under "enforcing social obligations?).

I seem to remember that from a legislation point of view, the CSA / CMG actually DO have teeth, and that some of the sanctions mentioned above are technically possible... it's just that they rarely use them as cases never seem to get escalated that far and if they do, the Courts are generally lenient (OK, give them another chance to pay etc etc).

CMS have a vast array at their fingertips. Some of them they don't even need to go to court for first.

Going to court they can apply for everything from charging orders, selling goods, revoking driving licenses and prison

However, it'll never change imo until it's socially unaccaptable to not pay for your kids.

There is no political will to make this a priority. Not from any colour of government. It used to be that people on benefits were only allowed to keep the first £20 a week of maintenance - the rest was owed to the Secretary of State to go toward offsetting the benefits bill. Even then, when it was money owed to the government, there was no teeth in the system. When it became clear there were huge amounts owed they had two choices - chase it up or scrap it. They srapped it and allowed people to keep whatever they could actually get.

My father died a couple of years ago. I was brought up by my grandparents from the age of 7. From when I was around 12/13 my father lived in the same house, he worked in the same place and yet they never got a penny from him. They took the money he should have paid from my Nana's benefits, but never got any from him. His estate took months to sort out because it turned out he still owed the secretary of state money (his debt to my grandparents died with my Nana though).

Like drink driving it needs to become socially unacceptable before it becomes a political focus.

So he can lose nigh on a quarter of his wage but no recalculation. Now if he were living full time with the kids then he’d have options to pull his belt in, make savings He can make savings on his own bills and spending. He shouldn't be expecting to claw it all back from his children. I go without before my children do. Surely that's how any decent parent would do things.

Ex doesn’t work and has rent paid / benefits etc. It's very unusual to have full rent paid. If benefits provided a decent lifestyle everyone would do it. You could stop work and do the same if you're jealous of her?

There is a huge amount of single mums not working and living on the benefit / maintenance wagon for years. Are there?! You do realise the vast majority of benefits are paid to working people?

We need to enable them to work as much as we need to force men to pay. Yes so the father of their children should offer to pay half their childcare costs and 50/50 care.

A lot of women are mugs!! Ah yes, stupid women. It's clearly them who are to blame for men's bad or abusive behaviour. If only we were all as clever as you

I worked for CMS for 2 years. The system is a joke with no real power

This is the myth that needs shattered. CMS do have power. They just don't use them, and there is no political will to make them use them.

Without applying for a court order first we can;

- take money direct from your earnings
- take money direct from your bank, building society or Post Office account (your bank, building society or Post Office may charge you each time we take a payment)

I have never known them to use the second of these options, ever..

If the person doesn't pay, or if they think it's a better option they can go for a liability order - part of the problem is that they do this before taking money from wages or bank accounts - and then their tools are even most vast.

We will use the liability order to take action such as:

- asking bailiffs or sheriff officers to go to your home and seize your belongings, and then sell them to cover the child maintenance that you owe
- putting a ‘charge’ against your property or some other asset you own so that you can’t sell or remortgage it without the child maintenance you owe being paid off first
- forcing the sale of your property or other asset and collecting the money from the sale to pay your child maintenance
- taking away your driving licence
- sending you to prison

Too often those options are ignored because "If he loses his license he'll not be able to work" or "it's drastic to put a charge on his house". However, if men thought for a second CMS would work their way through that list they'd be far more likely to pay. Right now they know they don't have to worry about a charge on their house, or baliffs, because CMS will give up after a few letters.

I informed the CSM that my child maintenance has stopped. They weren't taking calls so I had to fill out an online form. It said that they'll be in contact within TWELVE weeks and that they aren't chasing people for payments due to the Corona virus. Was fuming! What is the bloody point of them??

Thing is that even jobless parents still have to somehow pay for their children, keep a roof over their heads, clothe them. What I don't understand is why on earth a man with no job, living on benefits is only expected to pay about £4 a week. If the children lived with him he'd just have to change his budget and pay out for necessities so why does he not have to do that when the children live mainly with their mum and not him? They still exist, they still need to be clothed and fed etc. He'd have to suck it up if he hadn't split up with their mum and was still living there. I don't much care whether he has the cost of his own flat. He should have factored that in, the mum has to.

We need to make it socially unacceptable to not pay for your children. No excuses.

@Jux

Thing is that even jobless parents still have to somehow pay for their children, keep a roof over their heads, clothe them. What I don't understand is why on earth a man with no job, living on benefits is only expected to pay about £4 a week. If the children lived with him he'd just have to change his budget and pay out for necessities so why does he not have to do that when the children live mainly with their mum and not him? They still exist, they still need to be clothed and fed etc. He'd have to suck it up if he hadn't split up with their mum and was still living there. I don't much care whether he has the cost of his own flat. He should have factored that in, the mum has to.

We need to make it socially unacceptable to not pay for your children. No excuses.

If the children lived with him he would get more benefits though.

@Rachand0 I'm currently challenging this through the CMS complaints process although they are allegedly going to be starting again from 4 July.

FYI Bus driver is on all these threads with his 'whataboutery'. (waves at bus driver). THIS thread is about (mostly) men who don't pay at least cms. If you want to start a thread about grabby ex wives, please feel free. No one on here is denying that there are female nrps who don't pay, that some rps are far from blame free in the game playing stakes but THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT THAT. You always say 'yes nrps should pay cms' (never mind that the % makes that a pittance for most) but then go on to your own soapbox about an unrelated issue. There could be 10,000 greedy, evil, ex RPs out there. It wouldn't change the fact that hundreds of millions is owed in maintenance and over 90% of that is by men. You piping up on every thread with 'but what about' is just time-wasting.

@RachandO

I informed the CSM that my child maintenance has stopped. They weren't taking calls so I had to fill out an online form. It said that they'll be in contact within TWELVE weeks and that they aren't chasing people for payments due to the Corona virus. Was fuming! What is the bloody point of them??

They gave non-payers a free pass early on by announcing publicly they weren’t chasing them during Covid

My friend’s ex was paying until he read that in the paper. Announcing it was fucking stupid

I agree men have got away with this for so long. We leave so many children in poverty - how many of the children now getting free school meals over the summer come from a single parent family where the dad doesn't pay? Shame the footballer couldn't get behind a campaign to get dads to step up.

I would agree with taking away driving licences and passports, not allowing them to marry or claim any benefits if they owe child support.

There is a huge amount of single mums not working and living on the benefit / maintenance wagon for years

All statistics on this issue show that the majority of single parents work.

I am a single parent to 4 DC. Their father ran off and didnt pay maintenance. The CSA (as it was then) believed he earned £7 per week and so told me he didn't have to pay. I proved he earned £700 pw but he still didn't pay. They didn't make him either. They them told me he owed in excess of of £10000 in maintenence arrears but as he was self employed and couldn't force him to pay, the debt was being wiped. He had an expensive house, car and holidays 2/3 times a year while I scrapped to provide for his kids. The system is failing our children

There is a huge amount of single mums not working and living on the benefit / maintenance wagon for years

Oh, please, all councils are full-service UC from December, 2018, and legacy benefits are migratory and soon to moved to UC, all of them by 2023, immediate if there is any trigger including house move.

Yes, I'd like to see some reliable stats for this huge amount of women claim. I doubt they'll be provided, mind.

I’m curious to see the amount of vitriol thrown as these brave women when the case gets more attention in the red tops. I’m imagining a lot of ‘greedy’ and ‘feckless’ comments with little blame aimed at the actual feckless parents who refuse to pay for their children. I wonder how much the CMS cost the taxpayers to run? you don’t see much attention paid to the fact that there is a government service that is tax payer funded purely because some parents (mainly men) refuse to pay for their children. If only as much hatred was thrown at the men for making that necessary as there are at the single parents.

There is a huge amount of single mums not working

There's a huge amount of NRPs (mainly dads) able to work as many hours as they wish to progress their career because the RP (mainly mums) is looking after the children.

There are around 1.8 million single parent families in the UK, 90% of them are women.

200,000 are unemployed so 1.6 million are employed.

www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/employment/unemployed-single-parents/#:~:text=Almost%20200%2C000%20single%20parents%20%E2%80%93%20a,Pawel%20Adrjan%2C%20Economist%20%E2%80%93%20Indeed.

So no, there are not a huge amount of single mums who are not working.

Before I even opened this I KNEW what it would say. I don’t get a penny for my 2, both dads are unemployed. I got a job last year and one ex thought oh she doesn’t need my maintenance now, and left his job. It is really unfair how it isn’t taken more seriously. My sons dad has over 10 kids it came out recently and he pays £2 a week for 2 of them. I wouldn’t insult my boy for that and don’t want that connection to him.

Who ever said that there’s a lot of single mothers living off of child maintenance payments is nonsense! Most women won’t get that much especially where they may have more than one child!!

Very delusional statement to make! If more fathers pulled their weight a lot more mothers would increase there working hours

@Nearlyshitmypantsthere

Why are so many having a go at *@Givenupno*? Give the guy a break , he can't do right for doing wrong with you guys.

He could easily do right - by paying maintenance for the children he helped create.

The cms make a point of telling claimants not to factor it in to their budgets when working out what rent or mietgafwvrhey can afford. Thats how much faith they have in their own ability to function.

Mortgage! Not sure what that garbled bit was.