CMS diverted income. child maintenance dodgers, CMS not fit for purpose, leaving children in poverty, facilitating abuse and coercive control

[Toastandavocado]

Am I being unreasonable to think this is a crock of shit?

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/child-maintenance-modernising-and-improving-our-service/child-maintenance-modernising-and-improving-our-service

Here’s my advice from someone with years of experience of the woefully inadequate CMS system. Ltd Company Director wilfully paying a pittance to the welfare of his children and a system that has never ever led on the Welfare of the Child principle (if you’re at the start of this journey this advice is for you 💐)…

submit a variation as soon as you know there is diverted and unearned income. Be sure to mention both diverted and unearned income in your variation form to catch all hidden income sources- At this very early stage know you are going through the process, you are ticking the boxes that allow you to move to tribunal. Less than 20% of variations/Mandatory considerations are upheld and this is because CMS are an administrative money making government body and not one bit about your welfare, or the welfare of your child/children. Be very aware of this going forward, it will save you the years of heartache and stress I have had. And it will hopefully get you to a place more quickly where you can actually have your child/children’s welfare supported. I’ve spent years with ‘bits’ of information, misinformation and full ridiculous wild goose chases from CMS. DO NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP. If you have a self employed/Ltd Company Director child maintenance dodging ex this is what you need to do… you need to follow the steps to get to tribunal. It is the ONLY way you and your child/children stand a chance. By all means involve your MP/MSP in fact I’d urge you to do that but they are not going to get your children the maintenance they deserve… by all means report them to HMRC (which CMS tell you to do, then HMRC direct you to online because they’re so overwhelmed with RP’s they don’t deal with them) however this will still not get your child/children the maintenance they deserve. They live in real time? You live in real time? You and your child/children need the support now. The way I have stated below should have a much better chance at success…

www.voiceofthechild.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Variations-Overview.pdf

www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Challenging-your-Child-Maintenance-Service-calculation.pdf

Submit a variation instantly, once your variation is submitted (you can submit a variation at any time in your CMS case) chase up every week, as soul destroying as it will be as otherwise you’ll place your faith in a system that is broken and shit and doesn’t care about your child/children… you will be on hold for over an hour every time you phone, possibly cut off after an hour and have to start again, that happens often too. Keep going until they reject it, they will.
Don’t fall for their lies that their online portal is a wonderful way of keeping in touch, they’ll ignore that too. Push to get a response, that allows you onto the next ‘administrative’ step.


Do not bother playing detective, contacting HMRC or doing any of the the other nonsense that should be their job, just provide what you can.

As soon as you receive your rejection (because you will) complete and send in the mandatory reconsideration form (within a month)

wait for that to come back rejected because it will! Now download the tribunal form and fill that in and send it off (within a month)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/appeal-a-child-maintenance-group-decision-by-the-dwp-form-sscs2

And now you’ve got a fighting chance of getting some justice and maintenance for your children.

The system is set up to make us fail… it’s nearly killed me. I’m at tribunal stage. Come along and join me and let’s get a fair outcome for our children and improve their life chances. They deserve to be supported by both parents and they deserve a system that protects and supports them, we don’t have this in the UK and it’s an utter disgrace for a country that should genuinely protect the welfare of the child, and uphold the legislation around this. I’m rooting for you.

I’d rather not bother to be honest. If a non resident parent is unwilling to pay and is self employed then it’s really not worth it.
best thing to do is to make an agreement between parents. Otherwise just provide for them yourself and save years of misery and bitterness.
For full disclosure, I resented paying for a teen child who didn’t want contact and had a hostile ex partner. So I thought to hell with them. They withdrew the child maintenance application.
I look after my resident children solo and don’t expect a bean from their dad though.
It’s also about fairness and resource allocation I suppose.

Agree CMS are useless. Toothless. And enable post separation financial abuse.

My approach was to work hard to climb the career ladder so I wasn't dependent on any money from ex. That way he couldnt control me. However I appreciate there was lot of good fortune in being able to do that too.

Agree I wouldn’t bother my ex only ever paid £7 a week he now won’t even pay that, it’s not worth fighting for £7 and I wouldn’t go to the MP as I don’t want to seem like a money grabber, I don’t need his money.

“I don’t want to seem like a money grabber” am I missing the point? It’s about the child? Not about any other relationship, about a misplaced thought or societal prejudice about “money grabbing”it’s surely just about two parents supporting the upbringing of their children.

Parental responsibility for separated parents
If you have parental responsibility for a child but you do not live with them, it does not mean you have a right to spend time with your children. However, the other parent must include you when making important decisions about their lives.

You do not always need to get the consent of the other parent for routine decisions, even if they also have parental responsibility.

If it’s a major decision (for example, one of you wants to move abroad with your children) both parents with responsibility must agree in writing.

You can apply for a Specific Issue Order or Prohibited Steps Order if you cannot agree. A judge will then make a decision which is in your children’s best interests.

You must make sure your children are financially supported, whether you have parental responsibility or not.

You can get help to arrange contact with your children.

www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilities

It should not be relevant to say I have a good job, I have this, I think that… the overriding concern and responsibility should be that both parents equally financially support a child to give them the best chance in life.

Great thread and excellent advise. I can agree word for word with every bit of advice. I have been battling the CMS for 5 years and just done 2nd tribunal and arrears paid and now need to start process again. The stress it has caused myself and my family has been immense. Writing to MPs does help yes. It just means the CMS pay more attention to your case. Just get to that tribunal via mandatory appeals x 2 as quickly and as often as you can. The Cms is not there to support resident parents or the welfare of the child - get that out of your head. Time after time their priority seems to be to side with the paying parent and it can be so soul destroying. I will almost be glad when my kids reach 18 in a few years and this is all over for me. It allows deliberate attempts for paying parents to minimise liabilities. It make post separation financial exploitation easy for the paying parent.

Thanks wintrossmum and sorry to hear you’ve had the same horrendous experience that I have had and years of a maintenance dodging ex and a disgracefully inadequate, in fact negligent service that is CMS. Can I ask how long it took from you raising your appeal to the tribunal being heard? Did they easily find the diverted income? How long until you got the arrears paid back? Sorry for all the questions but it’s so so helpful to hear from someone who’s been through the process. It’s caused me so much stress it’s started to manifest in physical issues and talking to others who have been through it helps. The fact you’re having to go through this for the 2nd time is and should be treated as a criminal act.

www.cps.gov.uk/mersey-cheshire/news/ps100k-year-businessman-sentenced-dodging-years-child-maintenance-payments

If this was a routine step for those fathers who actively hide their income to deprive their children and financially control their ex partners, there would be a lot more children living the lives they deserve.

CMS is a shambles. I worked for them briefly a few years ago and it was appalling. The training was shit and people I worked with were surprised to hear of the powers CMS actually have. They’d never used them, or even encouraged to, so had no idea.

Everyone should involve their MP. Hassle and chase them. Only by getting politicians interested in CMS being fit for purpose will it happen. Even if that means Mp’s push for it to save themselves hassle it’ll be worth it.

Without political will nothing will change.

Also there needs to be a social change.

Its socially acceptable to dodge paying maintenance. Nothing will change until that changes.

I'm curious as to why men do this? Do they separate off from their children? How do they do that? What would your ex's think say about the welfare of their children? Presumably they were at once time enthusiastic about having them? Did they ever love them? I would walk over hit coals for my DC....I just can't think how I would ever get to the stage where I could see them so without. How in a break up does that happen?

Well I put in an application and ex basically bullied me out of going to the pay and collect stage. He shouted at me and basically threatened me. Not sure whether to go ahead and feel unsafe or go on and live my life.

@Glumbums do you have any evidence? If so you need to report him. You need to claim cms don't let him bully you.

JustLyra I’ve had my MP involved at the beginning, they told of their own story of the horrendous system when it was CSA and they too had suffered the same treatment and not received the appropriate maintenance. I have read numerous MP and MSP discussions spanning years around all of the major issues, loopholes, avoidance, lack of/non enforcement, poor training, wrong advice. Nothing has changed. You are right though, we need political power and we need it to be high on the agenda. Unfortunately as over 90% of resident parents are female we are disadvantaged instantly… I think we can all draw our own conclusions about a system set up predominantly by male politicians that’s supposed to protect the welfare of children.

JustLyra another fantastic point. I openly talk about the pittance the ex is paying towards his children and getting away with and I can see people squirm as if I am the one with the problem. In no other walk of life is it socially acceptable to shirk your financial responsibilities but many in society still actively support fathers to not support their children, it’s mind boggling. I’ll continue to make people squirm.

hettie, that’s the sad thing, a friend said to me, “he can’t love them” and I actually thought, he can’t love them like I do because no matter what hatred I had towards another human I’d always put my children first- (he cheated and left me by the way) still should not have any bearing on financially supporting your own children.

Glumbums go to Womens Aid for advice. Don’t delay, phone them tomorrow. I’m so so sick of hearing about these bullies and women feeling like they just have to take it. Best of luck.

Women’s Aid and police don’t let him away with it. I was always scared to do anything because we are so conditioned to just put up with things. I do understand why you’re worried though as the system sucks and it’s just lies from CMS when they say they have measures in place to protect us. However, Women’s Aid will really help you.

I totally agree about the CMS being not fit for purpose. However, I’ve ploughed on through to a Tribunal and the Judge ordered the Financial investigation Unit to become involved.
They were able to access my ExH’s bank accounts and found so much unexplained money, and so my claim that ex was earning a side income was believed.

Oh and I was given copies of the bank statements too, which pissed me off to see how ex was spending on hotels, holidays, fancy restaurants, designer clothes, cars, yet he was happy for our kids to go without.

Dahlia I’m glad that worked for you. Did you get back payments and appropriate payments in place going forward? Are the payments still being made? Unfortunately I had FIU involved too and they were awful. I’ve heard this from others too. Tiny team and hit or miss if you get the right person to investigate. As with all areas of CMS there’s no decent communication or accountability. It leaves vulnerable RP’s and children just as vulnerable. It should never be a lottery when the stakes are so high.

Dahlia, it’s soul destroying isn’t it. It impacts every bit of your life and well being. I know exactly how that made you feel. You and your children deserved better. We all deserve better.

Glumbums go to Womens Aid for advice. Don’t delay, phone them tomorrow. I’m so so sick of hearing about these bullies and women feeling like they just have to take it. Best of luck

I will. He still lives in the family home which he bullied me out of. He says if I press the cms button he will sell the house. Its ridiculous but I am very emotionally attracted to the house and as we're tennets in common I hope that I will get to live in it again someday.

Please contact Womens Aid. And if there’s any justice in this world (starting to lose hope) you’ll be back in that house.

I got a letter today stating my ex needs to pay £6.72 a week for 3 dc. No payment schedule or anything which is completely unlike any of the other letters I have received. I feel it is a constant battle with CMS. I have never received a willing payment from my ex, I had a period of 3 months where they took £7 out of his benefits, to which he quit and got a cash in hand job. I sent them the evidence of where he was working and everything. Nothing. I think they make it such a chore so you give in and close the case.

I should have said FIU was before I raised an appeal so still within the shitty CMS system. I suspect they ‘up their game’ when they’re being directed by a Judge.

That’s exactly what they do! Administrative body, we’re just pests on the system. Took me a long time to figure that out as it’s sold as an organisation that’s about putting children at the centre… utter bullshit and the MPs that support it should be held to account. Your tricky situation is the fact your ex is on benefits. Is he playing the system? Should he be getting benefits? If you really think not, report him for benefit fraud and fill in the form I have provided in my post for diversion of income and unearned income and raise an appeal. Don’t even bother wasting any more time with CMS you’ll get nowhere.

Yes they stuck on 20,000 to exh’s annual income, on top of his income from work. It was calculated down into that ridiculous formula they use, but it was worth me going to Tribunal.
He’s still paying back pay,

He will 100% be earning cash in hand however I currently lack any info of where. I don't have the energy to CSI it anymore. I've reported him several times for benefit fraud, nothing has ever come of it. I don't even want his money however I feel I am doing my children a disservice by cancelling it. At least I can show them I tried and he did whatever he could to weasel out of it.