To think this child maintenance benefits loophole is ridiculous ?

[Strawberrrrry]

I was talking to my sister today. Love my sister, don’t begrudge my nieces and nephews etc. However, I find this benefits loophole ridiculous, though I appreciate she doesn’t make the rules and is just claiming what she can. Anyway.

My sister has just broken up with her partner, they have two kids together. He is a high earner and child maintenance will be £1,200 a month (via the child maintenance service).

She earns £900 a month working part time, school time hours.

She has just put in a claim for benefits and she has been told she will receive £1,400 a month. This includes housing benefits, income support, child benefit. It doesn’t include discounts from council tax etc.

This brings her total monthly income to £3,500 and some change (I have given rounded figures). Completely tax free. I had assumed her benefits would be reduced as she gets a high amount of child maintenance. But no. They don’t count it. She admits herself that her monthly income is massive and she did first assume that the children’s maintenance would warrant some sort of deduction.

As I said, fair play to her as she is only doing what the system allows. However, I can’t help but feel this is a huge loophole, and there should be some sort of cap i.e once you are getting £500+ a month in child maintenance, it starts to affect benefits? And I realise her ex could lose his job at any point or stop paying, but if that happens surely benefits could reassess at that point…

It just seems ludicrous that someone can be getting that level of monthly income from maintenance & benefits, completely tax free. I’m sure it can’t just be my sister in this position.

AIBU?

I doubt it. They'll know what happened last time we tried linking benefits and maintenance, and that it would require expensive reform of the child maintenance services. It's the sort of thing that, while possibly saving money in the long run, is unattractive to governments because of the short term costs.

Sorting out absent parents paying would be useful, but I can see why it shouldn't affect benefits as the adjustments would cost a lot to administer as well as leaving children regularly in a precarious position.

The amount given in benefits to people who are able to work but choose "school hours" is a much bigger issue to me. I don't agree with any of the supposed pros of subsidising this. Sometimes parents need to work, most parents work and this is what after school clubs are for, so the kids won't find it weird at all and they will get used to it like every other kid did. If parents want to work part time then they'll need to get higher paid jobs and self fund it.

people explained multiple times why the system is how it is. what do you not understand? you sound green with envy, nothing else. Would you rather see your sister and nieces struggle?

The government should pay you the money you need and your ex should pay the government back.

He should get the following choices

1. Pay the money he owes
2. Claim a special benefit to cover the money he owes if he genuinely can't get a proper job and has no savings or assets he can use instead. Cash in a company would most certainly count as an asset.
3. See his credit rating wiped out, have bailiffs visit to collect his car for part payment etc etc.

I suspect the reason the government don’t take over the admin side and then deduct it from UC where relevant is because there are many money people who receive child maintenance and don’t need to claim UC than those that do.

your sister will not be on such a high income forever. She would be wise to sort herself out before the children age out of CM as UC will be reduced then as well. Does she own a property? She will struggle to save for a deposit whilst on UC as savings limit is £16k

I think the issue is because salaries have got all mixed up with subsidies in the current benefit system. It would be much clearer if we subsidise the businesses directly while forcing them to pay true living wages to staff like nurses, HAs, cleaners or baristas rather than UC benefits to individuals. Firstly, because it's cheaper for governments to do it that way, especially given that so much is hidden NHS and local authority spend. Secondly, because working people deserve the respect of being paid fairly for their work. And thirdly, because we can then assess whether the proportional government funding is actually being spent appropriately or not, instead of hiding what are effectively government costs and business subsidies under the guise of "benefits".

Like I said, it's been 15 years. Am close to the finish line. What do you think would have happened to us without support from benefits - my monthly wage as a teacher 12 years ago was £1.2k and my childcare came to around £1k.

I think you are misunderstanding that poster, who is saying you SHOULD have had money, but your ex should be forced to repay it to the government.

I mean there are loads of ways this could be done. People could continue with private arrangements if they want to and no benefits are claimed.

However if the NRP is unreliable with payment then anyone should be able to use this scheme to get the basic amount. I am sure we could come up with a better system then the current one.

The government focus should be much less on what is apparently fair based on income and much more on how much it actually costs to bring children up.

When I left my ex husband, I had to claim housing benefit. He was a high earner. Maintenance was 1000 pm.

I worked but it was MW and that doesn’t go far in London, I needed top up housing benefit.

When he found out that “all the money he gave me to piss up the wall” wouldn’t affect housing benefit, he kicked off. Called the council to tell them I was committing benefit fraud, as did all of his family who were also outraged - I wasn’t, they knew I wasn’t but they still had to investigate and it meant housing benefit was stopped for 12 weeks, me and ds were put in a precarious position.

They are, it’s called heating, food, roof over your head plus clothing etc. It’s an income and should be included.

So basically you're saying that although these kids have a high earning dad, they should live on exactly the same amount of money as those kids who receive nothing from their father.

The government would have still paid you the benefits just the same.

But instead of the tax payer (including families that are not much better off then you) having to pay for this your ex would have been made to instead.

Well, unfortunately the NRP can at any time reduce, miss a payment or withdraw all together their maintenance and just not pay. Your sisters ex could do exactly the same thing. And it's far, far more common than the NRP paying the right amount, on time, regularly for the duration they're supposed to.
If it were linked to benefits, then you'd need a much more joined up system to enable that to happen, but not leave the RP suddenly without a large proportion of their income for an unspecified amount of time, and it would need to be pretty much instant to not cause children and RPs to be pushed into poverty, even for a short time with things like rent, council tax and utilities going unpaid and then the repercussions of that, fees added for non payments and bailiffs etc. I mean if we went after non payers of maintenance the same way that non payers of council tax then that'd be something, but we don't. I was chased aggressively for non payment of one months council tax, yet a significantly higher amount owed to me in maintenance was written off completely as they failed to collect.
You don't get to say to your landlord, or mortgage company or council tax, or Asda that you can't pay now but you can in an unspecified amount of time when the NRP pays up or the benefits are readjusted, yet again. You don't pay those things, then there are concequences.

There's absolutely no guarantee that the NRP has to pay, and no will to make it that way, so it's the way it has to be unless something is done to absolutely ensure that NRP's are paying, paying the right amount and paying consistently, we'll have a further 'burden' on the state with children homeless, hungry, RPs needing more support than they would have had they just had consistent income to support the children.

It's a good idea in principle, but as there's no will to take non payments by NRP's seriously, it won't work.

It doesn’t make any sense as his income would reduce her benefits if they were still together even if they didn’t share finances, but somehow knowing she routinely gets £X per month isn’t counted once they are split?

I imagine it’s just a minority of people the loophole benefits so it isn’t worth the admin of closing but yes really it’s isn’t fair on those who work a tiny bit more she have their benefits reduced accordingly whereas she can receive £1500 and still have full benefits.

@Maverickess Well, unfortunately the NRP can at any time reduce, miss a payment or withdraw all together their maintenance and just not pay.

Thats just the same as earned income, at any time it could reduce, you could lose your job and the income is gone altogether yet obviously income reduced benefits. How is a maintenance payment different?

It should be exactly the same as council tax in terms of collection. Right down to the NRP having to claim themselves a benefit if they can't pay it.

And the government should pay it to the RP themselves and then get it back.

Hopefully OP reads this.

@Slidingdoors99 it is correct . Some lenders don't accept it, some lenders only accept it with extra paperwork (court order/letter from ex) etc. That’s why an extra source of income is needed. What would you have done if your ex refused to give you a letter or your benefits were half what you got because they counted CM?

Horses for courses as they say

There are so many women on here that get shot out because their ex doesn't pay the maintenance or declare bankrupt etc.

This country should do what the states do and if the absent parent stops paying they get thrown in jail as a reminder it's their responsibility instead of the tax payers picking up the bill.

You are deeply naive if you think the CSA/CMS haven't tried. We had a system that punished the PWC and the children. We tried it. The issue is that any system you develop will need a certain amount of slack built into it - time allowances for responding, getting things set up, reminder letters, more reminders ......and then when the courts get involved, months for a court date. Then the courts allow payment at the rate of £10 a month or other such insult. The system is cumbersome. Laws would nwes to be changed, the admin costs would be enormous, way more staff needed in thr Court system....it's not financially viable. Benefits are cheaper I suspect

I know that people can have all sorts of sanctions applied in the US for non-payment of child maintenance, up to and including jail time. Some states are more willing than others to apply those sanctions but it's still a genuine threat. But I also know there is a lot of American non-resident parents who nevertheless still owe huge amounts of unpaid child maintenance.

I suppose my question is, do those tougher sanctions actually work? Or does it just provide incentive for the non-res parent to hide their money better?

Working part time often isn't a choice. I would love to work full-tike but I'm a single mum with a child that has disabilities. There's no holidays or after school care that is suitable so I can only work during school hours. Lots of people will be in similar situations.

I totally agree with you OP. I'm from the time when the change took place from resident parents oy able to keep £20 to being able to keep it all. I evolved in a middle class environment and saw quite a few middle class separated mums being much better off than myself working FT in a decently paid job. They worked the minimum 16h and all in all enjoyed a financially very comfortable life. Three also had children from different well off men who paid maintenance.

The sad part though is the anxiety that grew as the kids got to 18. The kids are now in their early 20s, no more benefits, no more maintenance. Two are in new relationships but not happy. Two are on sickness benefits and struggling. One is working nmw job with no pension provision.

This is the worse position for these mums who were very capable and could be earning a decent wage now, but the years of enjoying a very nice income working few hours was too attractive.

Ultimately, if benefits are based on what one needs as a minimum, no single parent should really struggle even if they get no/minimum maintenance.

Did you not notice that there were other women at that time who were completely fucked over by the £20 rule, then?