Free School Meals on £32k salary

[icecube12345]

I'm a divorced father of two children in KS1 + KS2.

Share exactly 50/50 custody.

Due to various reasons, my ex gets double the CMS calculated CM payments plus additional spousal maintenance. In total, she'd need a job paying about £33k/year for the equivalent net income.

AIBU to think that it's morally wrong that my eldest in KS2 qualifies for free school meals when his parents have significantly more income than the vast majority? I hope not to make use of the free meals as I don't agree with it, but I'm shocked he qualifies.

Thanks ladiessmock. We're back on UCredit but not under the 7k now , so not eligible to reapply. Just thought Id check!

But for the OP yes it does seem crazy. We're on under half that amount and can't reapply. I guess its a quirk in the system though with child maintenance.
In your case shouldnt you be pleased as it means more stability for your child and more available for them?

Just because there’s a lot of shitty fathers out there, why do you assume OP is?
How bloody sad, is it that hard to believe that a man would support his kids?!

[quote icecube12345]@Willyoujustbequiet

No, this is about my opinion that the system is broken, and asking if it's morally right the system lets people in situation qualify. This has nothing to do with my ex at all. Just the system.[/quote]
The system isn't 'broken' because your child qualifies while their cms payments mean they don't need it. Yours is an unusual situation. Your child is lucky. It does not mean anything is broken.

I wouldn't worry. I remember in secondary school the embarrassment of being on free school meals. I wouldn't do that to my own daughter.

I think its different now. Noone would know at my childs secondary as its loaded onto your account.

Not sure why the op is getting such a hard time. His income more than covers his child's meals so they do not need free school meals. Whether the child should have them or not should be based on a conversation between both parents.

He or she is not responsible for other feckless parents, fathers in a lot of cases not paying towards their children. So some of the vitriol being aimed at him should frankly be aimed elsewhere!

I'm on a low income but still don't qualify for free school meals because I get working tax credit. The system is all wrong.

@knittingaddict

I was talking about maintenance administered by the CMS. Of course child maintenance can be negotiated through the family courts and could probably be any amount as long as both parties agree. The op said he was paying double what he should pay and that's all I was interested in. The CMS won't calculate when 50/50 care is in place, so I wonder what amount op is paying double of, plus spousal and plus 50/50.

The original post about 50:50 I quoted didn’t mention CMS. Just said that no maintenance is due for 50:50, which is what I answered

Anyway, if the OP’s ex gets child benefit then CMS would award maintenance, with the highest nights deductions, unless he was able to prove genuine 50/50 (in my three months working there I only saw one case where 50/50 was claimed, but no maintenance was awarded).

@SimonJT

I agree there is evidence to show this is some context. However the argument is flawed because if you are separated, but you both earn £100k, on "your" argument, that child is still disadvantaged so should be given exactly the same additional support in school as a child who's RP earns low enough to qualify for FSM, however they would not get anything.

I suspect the link is much more correlated to household income, rather than parent's relationship status.

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Not sure how FSM and stability are linked?

I believe in fairness. I guess my post was really talking about people exactly like yourself. From what you've said, I think my children's combined households income is probably 10x what yours is, however, mine get FSM and you don't. That is grossly unfair.

You're complaining about the symptom of the problem rather than the root cause OP. Still.

[quote icecube12345]@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Not sure how FSM and stability are linked?

I believe in fairness. I guess my post was really talking about people exactly like yourself. From what you've said, I think my children's combined households income is probably 10x what yours is, however, mine get FSM and you don't. That is grossly unfair.[/quote]
Stability and FSM are linked, in cases like yours, because if you stopped paying tomorrow then your child would still get lunch.

The insecurity of maintenance payments is one of the reasons they don’t count toward things like this.

@lyralalala

You're right, true 50/50 responsibility is different to 50/50 nights, however there's a chicken/egg situation because the responsibility would be more equal if the overall financial situation was more balanced, however you can't correct one without the other.

There's a scale though isn't there - I'm not a "weekend" father who just does fun stuff with his kids when he has them. The kids see us as equals from a parenting perspective. But then for example, as is common, their mother is in the Mums WhatsApp group so she's more in touch with what's going on at school, however I do 50% of the school drop offs/pick ups etc.

It's extremely rare, in any family, for there to be true 50/50 split, so it's very complicated to decide what counts as 50/50.

@CrappleUmble

The root cause is that CMS is not enforced and is badly managed.

To blame fathers (even the useless ones) is not how life works. If we didn't need enforcement, you'd not have a lock on your front door, we'd not have a police force, you'd not need HMRC to collect tax, you'd not need drink drive or speed limit laws.

Fully agree more men should step up, but that's not how humans work!

I’m not sure your the single father I’d say your the girlfriend of the father who has a problem with the ex.

[quote icecube12345]@lyralalala

You're right, true 50/50 responsibility is different to 50/50 nights, however there's a chicken/egg situation because the responsibility would be more equal if the overall financial situation was more balanced, however you can't correct one without the other.

There's a scale though isn't there - I'm not a "weekend" father who just does fun stuff with his kids when he has them. The kids see us as equals from a parenting perspective. But then for example, as is common, their mother is in the Mums WhatsApp group so she's more in touch with what's going on at school, however I do 50% of the school drop offs/pick ups etc.

It's extremely rare, in any family, for there to be true 50/50 split, so it's very complicated to decide what counts as 50/50.[/quote]
The system can’t work on scale to that level of detail though. That would be impossible to implement (and horrendously expensive).

So the scale is simplified - reduction for nights through CMS and, where proved applicable, no maintenance in court approved true 50/50.

Also it is fact that true 50:50 is very rare.

Instead of railing at the system that protects children like yours why not focus your ire at the millions of NRPs (predominantly male) and politicians who see lack of payments as such a non issue that the system has to be like this?

You’re and you're

Bloody autocorrect

[quote icecube12345]@CrappleUmble

The root cause is that CMS is not enforced and is badly managed.

To blame fathers (even the useless ones) is not how life works. If we didn't need enforcement, you'd not have a lock on your front door, we'd not have a police force, you'd not need HMRC to collect tax, you'd not need drink drive or speed limit laws.

Fully agree more men should step up, but that's not how humans work![/quote]
Not blaming fathers is how they get away with it.

It’s how politicians (predominantly male) see it as a non issue.

Blaming CMS defers responsibility.

[quote icecube12345]@CrappleUmble

The root cause is that CMS is not enforced and is badly managed.

To blame fathers (even the useless ones) is not how life works. If we didn't need enforcement, you'd not have a lock on your front door, we'd not have a police force, you'd not need HMRC to collect tax, you'd not need drink drive or speed limit laws.

Fully agree more men should step up, but that's not how humans work![/quote]
But you, as a human, could take into account what you've been told and stop complaining about a policy that essentially is as good as it can be in the circumstances. As it is, you came up with a batshit idea about parents declaring their maintenance, which would inevitably end up with some children missing out on FSM because of issues with payments or just mistakes, and haven't responded to any of the points telling you why that's a bad idea. There's nothing intrinsic to society or human nature forcing you to do that.

@lyralalala

The insecurity of maintenance payments is one of the reasons they don’t count toward things like this.

It's an interesting statement, my ex's small self employed income dried up during covid. My CM payments didn't.

I'd say that my CM payments are far more secure than a significant portion of the populations wages this year. Again, appreciate that's not the norm maybe, but that's why the solution is to manage a properly working CM system where by, where there is a flow of money, from one parent to the other it is correctly taken into account for benefits calculations etc. This would also hopefully give mortgage companies more assurances and allow them to lend against CM payments.

You're not going to get much disagreement on here that it would be better if we had an actual functioning and enforced CM system. Very few posters would disagree with that. The point however is that we do not, and frankly comments about men should step up but that's not how humans work don't help with that in the slightest.

@Iggypoppie

Imho ALL children should get free school meals, just like in Sweden etc.

All primary children do in some boroughs, such as mine (presumably why people assumed the KS2 child would be getting free meals anyway). I’m not sure if that’s because so many qualify that it is more trouble than it’s worth to take payment for the ones that don’t, or whether it is a general healthy eating initiative.

Either way, I agree it should be universal.

@lyralalala

The problem is that without enforcement, the issue will never be fixed.

[quote icecube12345]@lyralalala

The insecurity of maintenance payments is one of the reasons they don’t count toward things like this.

It's an interesting statement, my ex's small self employed income dried up during covid. My CM payments didn't.

I'd say that my CM payments are far more secure than a significant portion of the populations wages this year. Again, appreciate that's not the norm maybe, but that's why the solution is to manage a properly working CM system where by, where there is a flow of money, from one parent to the other it is correctly taken into account for benefits calculations etc. This would also hopefully give mortgage companies more assurances and allow them to lend against CM payments.[/quote]
You’re not seeing the wider picture.

your CM payments are more secure. That’s not the norm.

The system cannot work to your payments when you are in the minority.

Mortgage companies are never going to include CM payments when there are too many variables. For example you could rock up tomorrow with a partner who has children - payments cut instantly. You and said partner could have a child - payments cut.

Whilst there are variables in everyone’s lives with work situations, mortgage companies can mitigate them to an extent. They wouldn’t, for example, lend to someone only a month into a new job after not working for ten years.

Your example of Cm payments being more stable than wages this year also has a gaping flaw - CM payments are based on wages. So many people stopped paying CMS totally cancelled all collection actions.