Are CMS 'Sanctions' Effective?

[DeathNote11]

£14k on a liability order & over £1k arrears since the LO was made. It's taken 7 years to get to this point but the CMS are finally applying for a court date to impose sanctions. I am completely unsupported (parents are dead, friends all work), he chooses not to have contact & his family aren't interested. Maintenance would mean a better life for the kids plus I'd be able to have a day off now & then which is currently an out of reach pipedream (locum - if I don't work, I don't get paid & I can't afford the paycut of a permanent contract).

Do sanctions actually work? I know they'll impose loss of driving licence or passport. Or they'll give him a suspended sentence & the suspension will be lifted if he doesn't pay..... but all of that relies on the police, & my experience of the police is that they're just not interested.

I'm sick of fighting & I'm worn out in general. I just can't see an end to this, he is determined he won't contribute a thing financially or practically & I'm thoroughly expecting he'll find a way to continue shirking, enabled as usual by the CMS & police.

YANBU - sanctions did not work for me.
YABU - sanctions did work for me.

Sorry to say but they didn’t work for me. I eventually got about a years worth for one child but not for the other and then they closed the case and wiped the arrears. I had no more strength to fight. We literally lived on benefits ( disabled child I cared for full time) with the help of food parcels from my Mum. But we got there, both the kids are thriving and he has mostly lost his relationship with them as they realised what was going on as they hit adulthood.
Sorry I can’t be more positive

No apology needed, it's what I was expecting to hear. Child maintenance really is 'optional' in the UK. So sorry you were left in that situation.

I'm not affected by this as happily married but I really wish the government would do something about this. Go after dead beat dad's (it's usually dads) instead of disabled people (for example, I'm not disabled either). PP was right, CM is optional in the UK.
In a way, I can see why politicians don't do something about it, I don't think there are votes in it. Look at that other thread were some mums been calculated less than half of her nursery costs as maintenance. Most posters on that thread are telling her she should be grateful instead of WTF! I don't understand why the public are fine about men walking away from there kids and never paying a penny, even when those costs then fall on the taxpayer.

Is there no campaign group about this? It really needs to make a big noise before the election.